Anyone dealing with turf toe?

Discussion in 'Injuries and Prevention' started by greg1075, Jun 17, 2016.

  1. greg1075

    greg1075 Valued Member

    I was diagnosed with turf toe in my left foot and I have a milder case of it in my right foot as well. The left is pretty bad. I have very limited range of motion and rigidity of the big toe and chronic pain. Of course that's the two that regularly gets caught on the mat and I sprained really bad just last night. Tape jobs don't work very well and basically disintegrate after a couple of minutes of rolling. I'm not hot on wearing wrestling shoes. Do you guys have any recommendations other than ice and ibuprofen?
     
  2. Dead_pool

    Dead_pool Spes mea in nihil Deus MAP 2017 Moi Award

    1) Play guard /bottom more,
    2) dont base with the feet for six months
    3) be more mind full when you do scramble
    4) buy better tape,
    5) look at other nsaids
    6) replace any running you do with swimming.
     
  3. Theidiot

    Theidiot New Member

    I have arthritis in my big toe. Similar to turf toe. Proper name hallux limitus. It hurts. It will never be right, but I've been finding ways to help.

    Number one piece of advice. Don't look for a single solution. It needs to be lots of little things rather than one big thing. Here's what is helping in my case. Your case might be different.

    Starting with when you're NOT training :

    Look at the way you walk. I saw a podiatrist, who noticed I was rolling my feet too much to the inside, placing huge stress on the arthritic joint. The do special supportive insoles called orthotics to rectify that, but now I'm aware of it, I'm doing exercises to correct it, and also being more focused on how I walk.

    Walk round the house in bare feet. Take note of how the weight shifts and places pressure in different parts of the foot. Focus on developing even distribution of forces through the centre line from heel to the centre of the ball of the foot as you step. Practice subtle changes in foot roll as you step, diverting force slightly away from the big toe so it doesn't get as much pressure.

    When out and about, wear good footwear. I chose ankle boots for support, with fairly chunky stiff soles to minimise forces on my toe joints. This is about resting the joints. I look at it as saving them for training. If I'm just walking about to the shops or whatever, that's far too boring to sacrifice toe time to. But I equally don't want to be crippled, so the sturdy footwear let's me stay active while still resting the toes.

    Onto exercise.

    Practice exercises that build strength in the small muscles in the foot. These become weak when you avoid pressure on the foot because of pain. The trick is to find exercises that train these smaller muscles without places pressure on the injured joint. This will enable you to more effectively and subconsciously divert forces around the injury instead of through it.

    Don't try to force your toe upwards. At least not until you know the exact nature of the injury. I did that. The pain got worse. Then I was shown the xray. Arthritis has deformed the joint so it simply cannot flex properly. No amount of training was going to change that. By trying to stretch it is was inadvertently grating bone against bone.

    In your martial training, adapt. Remember that everyone is physically different and martial arts is as much about finding your way as it is about perfectly copying someone else's. I will never be able to do front kicks well because of the pressure they put on the front of the foot. So I will simply work extra hard on the many other techniques.
     

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