It became known yesterday that another Russian figure skater received stress fracture, we are talking about the champion of the country Sofya Akatieva. Sport is about the essence of injury and the attitude of coaches towards it.
Sources note that about a week has already passed since the injury to Akatieva, the athlete immediately interrupted training and began to use the fixator. Sophia's injury is clearly not neglected, she was quickly detected and treated in a timely manner, so in a couple of weeks we may well see her again on the ice.
In complex coordination sports, a stress (or fatigue) fracture is one of the most popular diagnoses. Unlike an ordinary fracture, it occurs not as a result of a single powerful mechanical damage to the bone, but through a prolonged load on the affected area, during which the bone tissue begins to gradually break down, forming a kind of crack.
At the same time, in In modern practice, there are often cases when a stress fracture manifested itself precisely after mechanical damage, which in turn complicates the diagnosis of whether we are dealing with a specific fracture — ordinary or stress. One well-known figure skating coach said that over time, this led to the fact that doctors began to write down all “borderline” fractures as stress fractures, which causes quite a lot of confusion.
However, there is one way to almost unmistakably determine the truth — the clinical picture of the injury. Unlike a normal fracture, a stress patient can use the injured limb and even step on the injured leg, and in some cases almost without pain. At the same time, over time, the condition of the affected bone with continued loads begins to deteriorate, swelling appears, and pain increases. This may take a long time (up to several months), but sooner or later you will still have to seek medical help.
There is an opinion in sports that a stress fracture is much easier than usual — if only because, in certain situations, you can even continue to compete with it for some time without losing much in the quality of your performances. During the Olympic season, the situation of Alexandra Trusova, who faced a similar foot injury, was discussed with the rhythmic gymnastics coach of the base in Novogorsk. It sounded something like this: «A fracture? Oh, how is she like that … Oh, stressful? Well, that's still nonsense, three weeks in the «boot» is like ice and it will return. Every second one here had such a story.»
Why do gymnasts and figure skaters suffer from stress fractures more than others? Probably due to repetitive stress on the bone groups most susceptible to these injuries. This, of course, is about the feet — the skaters overload them during the repulsion on the jump, hitting the ice with the prong of the skate, and the gymnasts — on turns and other elements on which they have to stand on their toes.
The above-mentioned «boot» — a tight fixator that immobilizes the ankle — is one of the main elements of the treatment of a stress fracture. As with the usual, the main point of recovery is the rest of the injured limb with the obligatory refusal of training and performances. Depending on the severity of the injury, instead of a «boot» — a kind of intermediate option — both a lightweight splint and a gypsum weighted in every sense of the word can be used. Their use allows reducing treatment from the standard six to eight weeks to about four, which is especially important in figure skating and rhythmic gymnastics, where the competitive season is very short.
In general, the healing time for stress fractures depends on many factors, the main of which is At what stage was the damage detected? With timely access to a specialist and ensuring rest of the bone, recovery can take place quite quickly and the athlete will not have to miss a significant part of the competition.
For example, Nikita Katsalapov in 2015 coped with a stress fracture of the foot in just four weeks, and Alexandra Trusova (autumn 2021), having received a diagnosis in her hands and already experiencing significant difficulties with her leg, won the Grand Prix stage and did not seek to completely interrupt training . Later, the doctors nevertheless insisted on treatment, but according to estimates from the outside, it lasted even less than that of Katsalapov — about three weeks, during which Alexandra also managed to make her way onto the ice despite the prohibition of doctors and coaches, while not stopping working in the gym .
In the fall of 2017, Evgenia Medvedeva's relationship with a stress fracture of the foot bone began in a similar way. After discovering the problem, Evgenia won the Grand Prix in Japan, after which she had to apply a cast. True, despite this, she had to recover for quite a long time — about two months. It is believed that it was this injury that prevented her from approaching the 2018 Olympics in peak form.
Perhaps in modern history, Daniil Samsonov had the longest recovery from stress fractures (superimposed on Osgood-Schlatter disease, the figure skater missed almost three years) and Anna Frolova. In an interview, Anna said that in her case the situation was complicated by the non-standard nature of the injury — the doctors discovered several stress fractures in one foot at once, which is why she had to undergo treatment in the hospital.
The opinion of the author may not coincide with the position of the editors.< br>