One Fitness Fanatic’s Tale of Working Out and Running with a Broken Toe

Once upon a time, in the first week of June 2009 to be exact, a fitness fanatic named Rachel headed outside barefoot to do the most mundane of chores – take out the garbage. As she neared the trashcans, she noticed the neighbor’s soccer ball wedged between the cans. Being the excellent neighbor and caring citizen that she is, she resisted the urge to abscond with the ball and, instead, tossed it into the neighbor’s yard.

Horror of all horrors! The ball began rolling toward the street . . . just as a car was approaching. Rachel, also being of lightening quick intellect, deduced that the ball and the car would meet and the ball would suffer a terrible end. The attributes of soccer lover, good citizen, and able bodied neighbor all came together and, in a split second, Rachel was running down her driveway and along the sidewalk to intercept the ball and do her daily heroic deed.

Did I mention that our hero was barefoot? Did I mention that she had been sitting, working at her computer for the last hour?

These two components came tragically together as Rachel bounded down the sidewalk. Her left Achilles tightened up, from sitting so long. She stumbled. Her right big toe dragged on the cement and bent all the way under her right foot just as Rachel put her entire body weight on that foot. She was stopped dead in her tracks, with a burst of pain exploding in her right foot.

But what about the ball? Well, ironically enough, the stupid ball never even made it to the street. It lost its momentum and stopped as it hit a rock just before dropping into the street.

Our mighty hero crumbled to the ground in pain. At first, she thought the toe was just sprained. Then, after the pain continued to grow over the next 15 minute, she realized she had actually broken her big toe. It got nice and swollen, turned black, blue and purple, and hurt like a you-know-what!

What would this mean for this fitness fanatic’s workouts? How would she run? How would she jump? Would she take a break and let the bone heal like any normal person?

Since working out and staying fit and strong are non-negotiables for Rachel, the only other option was to find a way. She got on the internet to research how to run with a broken big toe and what activities would be okay to continue. Every site she found was too afraid to condone the notion of continuing to workout at all, let alone run, with a broken big toe. Rachel, being the stubborn, determined, slightly bull-headed girl that she is, was not giving up that easily.

She used pre-wrap and athletic tape religiously for the next 6 weeks. She buddy-taped her big toe to her second toe for every single workout. She modified her workouts and eliminated running and jumping for the first week. She still did tons of strength training, bodyweight training, bike riding, and other low impact activities.

She had plenty of well-meaning people, and every website she consulted, warn her to stop working out and just rest the foot and let the bone heal. She had others tell her the toe wasn’t broken just bruised or strained. Rachel knew better. She had broken bones in the past, toes included, and knew exactly what a broken bone felt like. She also knew that taking time off from working out was not an option, not necessary, and completely inconceivable.

She found that by buddy-taping the toe she could run a bit after the first week. She kept her distances shorter, pushed off the ball of her foot instead of her toe and took breaks when the pain got bad.

While Rachel is not a doctor, and can’t give medical advice, she can tell her story. Everything she read in medical books and on the internet warned against running for at least 4 weeks. They all said that she could and probably would cause more damage to the foot. Rachel thought that the risk was pretty over-estimated. She wasn’t naïve or stupid, but she was determined. She let her running grow gradually as the pain decreased, she avoided jumping rope because that really did hurt, and she even got into using a stair-climber at home. Not only was she still working out, but during that time she even went to doing two workouts a day.

And guess what? By late August, she was running pretty smoothly with minimal pain. She is now working out with no tape, no pain, and no restrictions. She is running with no tape and the foot feels great. She still feels the toe every once in awhile, but it’s a 1 on a 10-scale. She didn’t aggravate her injury and she not only kept working out, but also lost a nagging 7 pounds and is back to her ideal fitness place. That’s pretty damn close to “and she lived happily ever after.”

The moral of the story —- if your workouts, your fitness, and your health are non-negotiables (and they should be) there’s always a way to work through or around an injury or condition.  Make some modifications, change things up, tape things together, but find a way. Make a way. Don’t just sit back and give up altogether! There is always something you can do.