non-weight bearing injury-continue to train non-affected leg?

[hawk105]

Hi all, I recently sustained an injury to my right great toe that requires me to be non weight bearing for 6 weeks post surgery (t plate and screws). My question is should I work on one leg drills and strength on the non-affected leg or just wait until healed. I am worried about having a large difference between the strength of the affected and non-affected leg. Thanks! Steve

 

[FrankDay]

Hi all, I recently sustained an injury to my right great toe that requires me to be non weight bearing for 6 weeks post surgery (t plate and screws). My question is should I work on one leg drills and strength on the non-affected leg or just wait until healed. I am worried about having a large difference between the strength of the affected and non-affected leg. Thanks! Steve

Riding a bike is not "weight bearing" as thought of by a physician. It is partial weight bearing (and not very big at that unless you are out of the saddle doing hill repeats) and may be allowable by your physician. Also, with that injury, if you were to move your cleats back to arch or heel cleats you would be putting even less pressure on your toe area. Talk with your doctor as there is probably no reason you can't keep riding your bike with both legs with certain restrictions.

 

[hawk105]

thanks for the info Frank. Steve

 

[Alex Simmons/RST]

Hi all, I recently sustained an injury to my right great toe that requires me to be non weight bearing for 6 weeks post surgery (t plate and screws). My question is should I work on one leg drills and strength on the non-affected leg or just wait until healed. I am worried about having a large difference between the strength of the affected and non-affected leg. Thanks! Steve

While the forces are small, it still might be awkward, painful, or difficult to use the foot with injury, so I wouldn't advise it. Go with your doctor's recommended time frame for return, although it is a good idea to be working with a sports injury specialist for that advice.

I broke a bone in my foot many years ago and had to wait 6 weeks before I could pedal lightly and 12 weeks before being allowed to apply full gas effort.

It is possible to do some fitness maintenance with one legged pedaling, but it will work far better if you attach some weight to the non-drive pedal, about 11kg is about right and confine yourself to the trainer. In that way you get a fairly realistic pedaling sensation with the one leg. Otherwise it's really not like pedaling, will be a bigger chore and you won't last anywhere near as long on any session, and fitness will decline more than it needs to.

Look up SLAM pedals, which enable you to do this although I'm sure others have done something similar in other ways.

I wouldn't be too concerned with any imbalance after you heal, that will sort itself out and you can always do some inertial weighted one leg efforts on the other leg later if you like.

As for leg power differences, I had a lower leg amputation and one thigh (amp side) is now 10cm smaller circumference than the other. Yet I've been able to beat previous best W/kg for 4-min and longer despite the big difference between my legs.

IMO, leg power imbalance is way over rated as a performance issue of concern.