Let’s Face it…Crutches Suck!

It’s still hard for me to believe that the same crutches, the same design that doctors hand out to patients today are more or less the same kind of crutches handed out to injured soldiers during the Civil War.

And although crutches are truly terrible, they can be a useful treatment to help any injured runner heal faster.

But you as a runner have to understand there’s a very high price to pay for using crutches. With one week of immobilization and non-weight-bearing on crutches you will have a 17% reduction in the muscle diameter size in that lower extremity. At six weeks, the damage is 60% and you actually can wind up with permanent atrophy as a result of being on the crutches too long.

That’s right. You can actually get permanent weakness as a consequence of using the crutches.

Today on the Doc On The Run podcast we’re talking about 3 keys to less time on crutches.