Help with exercise plan for my daughter

[lunabee34]

My 16 year old daughter is a runner who has been having tendon issues that interfere with her running. She hasn't been able to run since the first week of December. She is sad, frustrated, sleeping poorly, and managing her anxiety poorly as a result. The issue is currently with her foot.

Does anyone have any suggestions for exercise that might not exacerbate the injury? Once the inflammation calms down, walking seems to be okay, but she really wants to be doing something that gets her heart rate up and is more of a workout. We tried the stationary bike, and after about 16 minutes, her foot started hurting. Swimming is out because there's no indoor pool in our town.

I'm just at a loss. I feel so helpless and bad for her. She tested positive on an autoimmune scan, but we can't get into the pediatric rheumatologist until March. I tried to get her GP to call them and expedite the appointment but he won't do it because he doesn't see enough evidence that it's a rheumatology problem instead of a musculoskeletal one. He is referring us to PT, so hopefully that will happen soon, but in the meantime, I don't know what to do to help her get the exercise she needs.

Help!

Comments

[jjhunter]

As a daily practice to help take the edge off, the NYT's Scientific 7 Minute Workout might not be a bad place to start. (I would recommend skipping or adapting the jumping jacks and high knees bits, but the rest will likely be fine.)

Pilates can be surprisingly intense & satisfying with the right teacher, and it would definitely be gentle on the feet - there's a big focus on building core strength that would be excellent cross-training for a runner even if she was in her usual frequency of practice right now.


I don't know if climbing stairs at a slow but steady pace would avoid exasperating the tendon issue, but you can definitely get your cardio up significantly if you just keep climbing up and down multiple stairs even if your actual pace is slow-ish.

Shame there isn't a nearby indoor pool - that really would be ideal for cardio with that kind of injury.

Um, that's all I can think of at the moment, but if you have a local equivalent of the YMCA or a climbing gym or the like, somewhere where there are trainers or coaches, might be worth stopping by to see what they recommend to their clients who have similar injuries as far as continuing do cardio without slowing the healing process.

[lunabee34]

Thank you so much for the suggestions. That link looks really great, especially.

I wish we had a pool, too. We live in this really rural area, and all that's available is the school gym which is perfectly serviceable but hardly well appointed.