Achilles Tendon Injury
 

I am a daily runner during weekdays and overdid it and now have an Achilles tendon injury. I'm thinking I just overdid it and need a little time away from running. I was wondering though if anyone else had injured their AT and continued to ride. If so did you have any issues or was your biking unaffected? I want to continue riding so that I don't get too far behind as far as my fitness and building endurance/speed goes. Looking for any advice from those who may have dealt with this issue previously. Thanks in advance

I had an achilles injury last fall, and cut out running, but continued to ride, hoping to maintain my fitness level. Sorry to tell you, it didn't work very well. I struggled with it for a couple months, and it didn't get much better at all. Eventually I had to take eight weeks of rest, and started eccentric heel raises as soon as the swelling went down.

The really frustrating thing with tendon injuries is that they take so long to heal. If I had broken my leg I would have been back to running and cycling faster than if I had injured my tendon.

I've had achilles tendonitis twice. First time I took two weeks off the bike completely, did nothing but sit on the couch till the pain was completely gone, and was fine the rest of the season. Second time I took only 4 days off, decided to get back on the bike because the tendon pain was very low and only surfaced during exercise. Figured I could just take it easy and train through it until it got better. Big mistake. Two weeks later the tendonitis got much worse and I spent the next 2 months rehabing it, completely trashed my season. So my .02 is wait till it's fully healed before resuming training. If you want to maintain your cardio, try swimming.

Yeah I may have to give the swimming a try just to keep up my fitness. My morning routine typically went 4-5 mile run followed by 20 pushups, 25 situps & 5 Burpees and I would repeat that routine (minus the running) 5 times. I will probably keep up everything except the running and will probably stay off the bike as well as I have a 2 month school starting in July that performing daily physical fitness routines are mandatory and to show up and not be able to participate means losing the school. That gives me about 5 weeks between now and then so I should be good by then, but I am worried about my fitness level as I am now up to being able to run 4-5 miles everyday and don't want to lose too much. My issue will be stopping myself from running once I "feel" it's ok to do so.

What kind of injury specifically? That will effect a lot of what you should be doing. If it's just some early onset tendinitis, then take a week off running and cycling, and do some light swimming just to stay active. I would quit the burpees in that time too. 5 isn't much at all, but in that landing your calf muscle and achilles is one of the first things to cushion some of that impact. Ice it as frequently as you can, especially at the end of the day or after you swim, and take some light anti-inflammatories. Test it out a bit in a week and go from there. You could have just tweaked it, and if that's the case, a week or so might be enough rest. The real problem is if you keep training on it and get more serious tendonitis, then you have to take a long time off for it to heal, and that's no good.

I have a partial tear of my AT that I am still getting over. You issue hopefully isn't as serious as I am still limping and it's been over 5 months. Had x-rays and ultrasound done and the doctor said just give it time. Went to physio which helped with the swelling but it is still a drag. I can ride but don't have the strength in the ankle to stand on the pedals. So it's only been seated ridng for me which is a bummer as it is always fun to get out of the saddle for that burst. Rest it if you can. Good luck.

I think I tweaked it and have the early stages of tendinitis. I have taken the last 3 days off with absolutely no running or biking, but it is still sore to walk on so will probably give it at least a full week and most likely two before I attempt any running/biking. It is killing me though as I am usually pretty active with running/biking, but I am thinking long term here rather than immediate gains. The big thing I'm really gonna have to watch now is my eating to ensure I don't overdo the carbs or anything else that I typically burned off with my work outs. Hopefully I can be back on the bike by next weekend with a fully recovered AT.

It took me months before mine were OK again.

When you do get on your bicycle again, lower the saddle a little bit.