I have to take the summer off from gym!!

[enginesmilez]

I just found out from my physical theripest (I have been going there because I have problems with my heel and knee), that I have to take 2 months off! Now if you are a gymnast you would understand that you can't just drop everything and take 2 months off of gym, it's not like that. I am just starting to get all of my skills and 2 months is going to ruin everything. But the doctor said that I have to take the time off. But I don't know what I'll do. I DO NOT want to be a couch potato, and I DO NOT want to just jump on the trampoline or ride my bike all summer. Just so you know I have absolutely no talent except gymnastics. Any ideas??? I am very sorry if it is a stupid question to ask, but I am stuck and I need opinions. Anything can help!

P.S. If you have ever had osgood slautters (knee pain), or caceneal opofocites (heel pain, sorry if it is spelled wrong), or you know any ways to make it better, tell me! I want this to go away ASAP!

 

[Deleted member D3987]

I just found out from my physical theripest (I have been going there because I have problems with my heel and knee), that I have to take 2 months off! Now if you are a gymnast you would understand that you can't just drop everything and take 2 months off of gym, it's not like that. I am just starting to get all of my skills and 2 months is going to ruin everything. But the doctor said that I have to take the time off. But I don't know what I'll do. I DO NOT want to be a couch potato, and I DO NOT want to just jump on the trampoline or ride my bike all summer. Just so you know I have absolutely no talent except gymnastics. Any ideas??? I am very sorry if it is a stupid question to ask, but I am stuck and I need opinions. Anything can help!

P.S. If you have ever had osgood slautters (knee pain), or caceneal opofocites (heel pain, sorry if it is spelled wrong), or you know any ways to make it better, tell me! I want this to go away ASAP!

taking 2 months off seems a bit extreme for these very common and treatable growing problems in gymnastics. maybe everyone can talk about modifying what you do and how much you do it. modifying and cutting a back a couple of days a week may be the answer to your question.

 

[Panda-girl's Mom]

I agree maybe you could get a second opinion from a sports medicine doctor who understands the sport. I have found with my daughters injury that her doctor was more supportive of her doing gymnastics. Although she was in a cast for a month she was still able to condition and do other things at the gym. Eventually she was able to return slowly to full training, she never missed even a week of practice.

 

[katemoss1]

I agree with the others, go get a second oppinion. And if its really that bad Im sure you'll find something to do for the next 2 months. A couple of years back I ran about 10km every day. After a month I had really bad problems with my knees and my hips. I stopped running after that. If you want to work out without wearing your joints to much – I recomend swimming. If your knee is really bad you can buy a pulluoy (a floaty thing that you put between your thighs so your legs float). Swimming really helps a lot and you train almost all your muscles (depending on what you swimm and if you swimm right) Maybe you can join a swim club for the summer. I cant really think of another sport you can do with a bad knee or heel.

 

[bookworm]

I guess it depends on how bad the pain is and how willing your coaches would be to allow you to train a modified workout...my daughter had calcaneal apophysitis (the heel pain) and although she modified her training and wore the heel pads etc for months, it never went completely away until she broke her foot and ended up in a cast for 2 1/2 months...and after she came out of the cast, she never (knock on wood) had the heel pain again so it evidently needed the complete rest to heal....but everyone is different but that resting it worked for her. In the big picture, 2 months isn't that long if it cures it..

 

[Granny Smith]

I would also recommend as others have said to maybe get a second opinion. Is it possible that you could still go in and just condition and maybe work bars. The thing that is going to make it easy for you to come back is to keep your strength up. You should be able to work your upper body, core, continue to work your other leg and possibly light conditioning on "problem" leg. Bars you could do without having any impact on your leg at all, just don't do any dismounts or if you do flyaways you could do double back timers to your back into a pit or stacked mats.

My dd had a broken foot that took almost 4 months for her to heal. She was in a plaster cast for 4 weeks, an aircast boot for 4 weeks and then an ankle brace for almost 8 weeks. She was able to do all that I mentioned above. She was just released the beginning of May (100% healed - YAY) and she is now back to the point that she was before she broke her foot skill-wise (if not even more skills due to uptraining) with the exception of vault at the moment, but I'm sure it will come back.

I believe the key is to stay in the gym if possible in some form or another.

 

[gymcoach34]

yes, ask your coach for the name of a sports orthopedist-preferably one that deals with feet/legs if possible. That dr will instruct you on how to keep conditioning and train bars & whatever you can do (leaps/ jumps and basic tumbling on TT maybe, for example). Some drs & PT's do not understand the demands of competitive gymnastics-they think itso like backyard soccer- so they think 2 months off is no big deal. It certainly is, esp if you are an optional level gymnast!

There is a way to feel better and still train!

 

[CreateMagic]

Condition, condition, condition. Leg lifts, pull-ups, push-up, hollow holds, v-ups, arch rocks. Anything you can do to strengthen your upper body and core will help you to come back quickly afterwards.

 

[3stars]

I have to agree that you need to still condition like crazy and that your workouts can be modified to rest your knee and heel. Talk to your coaches, they will be able to help & a second opinion with a therapist wouldn't be a bad idea.

 

[BlairBob]

Calcaneal apophysitis or Sever's disease. Much of the data out there point that this and OSG are overuse injuries. Too much repetitive pounding on developing juvenile joints that are not recovering.

Most of what you see with a google is JUVENILE OVERUSE athletic injury. It happens.

I also have heard of orthotic use because many will have a lot of discomfort walking. By the time these kick in, your past the point of preventative work and need to focus on recovery and rehabilitation. Preventative work must be a concern even after recovery.

Basically, you need to reduce pounding on your knees and heels. Perhaps eliminate all plyometric/rebounding actions. This means even work on BB is suspect from things like BHS and flips and jumps. Landings should be limited and I'd work as much pit bar as possible when it comes to flyaways

There has been some data out there that landing on cushy surfaces requires the joints to work harder because there is more give and instability in a sense.

Tumbling on soft surfaces is what gymnasts end up doing with signficantly reduced time on floor, rod floor and vault (sprinting is very hard on OSG).

Obviously, doing nothing is an excellent way to reduce that pounding. Unfortunately, you cannot afford to retrograde in upper body and trunk strength and conditioning as a gymnast.

If your coach's do not understand that you should be reducing pounding volume, you are in a bad situation. Hopefully, they are not this ignorant.

Keep up with the upper body and trunk strength building and conditioning.

Eliminate or reduce running and jumping.

I'm still of the opinion that work on things like squats and heel/toe raises besides releve holds would be alright so long as they are done correctly and slowly. Don't slam the knees on the ground during lunges, simply doing slow squats/lower body work is fine. Let the body heal and then introduce plyometrics/rebounding after healing has occurred.

Time on vault can be spent conditioning these or doing other vault drills such as blocking, tramp aerial awareness work, block on tumbl-trak to porta pit drills.

Time on floor can be spent on walkovers and cartwheel turnover drills, more work on fundamental basics, turns, light dance besides handstand work.

Swimming would probably be a good idea to maintain any necessary cardiovascular ability since sprinting and jumping besides series of such would not be used in the recovery phase. One can still cause the body to work anaerobically with upper body and trunk conditioning, but it is a bit different when excluding lower body work.

 

[hawaii_gymnast]

I had osgood schlatter syndrome, but now have patella femoral syndrome. I continued with gym just didnt do squats and stopped to ice when ever it hurt. Your physio therapist should give you some strengthening and stretching exercises. She may also have a way that you can tape it for gymnastics to ease the pain. Make sure you ice it all the time!
Patella strap for runner's knee and chondromalacia
i also had a knee brace like this. Im sure you can order it online or i got mine from health care solutions.

For the heels, my friend had this heel cushion thing that she wears
but i am not sure wear she got them.

For these injuries i couldn't see them getting you to take that much time off

 

[cher062]

Well first let me say I know you must have more talents but I know for gymnasts they can only see gym.

Next Gym is important I get that but your health is more important!
Get the second opinion and see if you can do a modified training.

My DD had overuse issues with her ankle ant they wanted her to take 6 months off but I said she was a gymnast and that wasn't going to happen and after talking to the sports medicine Dr they came up with a training that allowed her to continue training but not all things. She had to stop tumbling on the floor for at least 2 month, wear an ankle brace all the time for 2 months to give it more support. At the gym the DR gave her ankle conditioning exercises she did for about 30 min instead of running. At practice she was able to do the bars without the landings, no vault at all, the dance moves on the floor, dance moves on the beam. After 2 months she was allowed to add tumbling on the tumble track so long as there was no pain. It took 8 months for everything to heal right because she was still doing gym and she did loose some skills that she quickly recovered. Her "schedule" was disruped but her ankle is now healed and she is back to her regular training but if she feels pain she is to let me know.

These type of injuries are common and sometimes we do have to take a step backwards to heal properly.

 

[enginesmilez]

To gymcoach34,
See, I am an optional gymnast! That's why it's such a big deal to me. But your advice was very good!

 

[enginesmilez]

Ok, so the thing is, my heel and knee really don't hurt that bad. But my phisycal theripist still feels inflamation. He has given me stretches and strength exercises, and I have been doing those, but he wants me to take time off WITH the stretches. And he doesn't want me doing gym at all in that time. My parents keep giving me options of what I should do but I don't want to do any of them. I am just not interested in anything my parents have offered.

 

[cher062]

Ok, so the thing is, my heel and knee really don't hurt that bad. But my phisycal theripist still feels inflamation. He has given me stretches and strength exercises, and I have been doing those, but he wants me to take time off WITH the stretches. And he doesn't want me doing gym at all in that time. My parents keep giving me options of what I should do but I don't want to do any of them. I am just not interested in anything my parents have offered.

Thats what they told my daughter too but I stepped in and said that isn't happening because she is a competitive gymnast so we need to find a plan where she can still practice at least some of the stuff so she doesn't loose skills. She ended up with a modified practice schedule. Yes she did loose some tumbling skills during this and had to do catch up but she didn't loose everything.

they talked to the coach to see what type of conditioning she does and what type of practice etc she did and they then came up with a plan that everyone could live with.

there are alot of things the therapists want but don't get.