Additional Injuries

I have not yet been to the orthopedist however, i believe i have self diagnosed my injury.  Once again it is on the left leg (same as my achilles tendonitis); but I beleive it is almost present in the right leg as well.  I was training for a 14 mile trail run when I overworked my anterior tibial muscle and attaching tendons.  This muscle and tendon are used to lift the foot and turn it inward (flexing and inversion).  When trail running there is a lot of special attention paid to foot placement and agility required on the balls of your feet. With this sort of activity it places a lot of stress on the calf muscles/tendons and feet. 

This injury is probably from muscle imbalance as well as overall weakness and overstressing a muscle. 

BALANCE:  I have mentioned in a previous post that I have been doing yoga (Bikram yoga).  Some of the yoga positions have balance poses where you are balancing on a single leg. I have noticed (since I started in January 2012) that my balance has been poor.  Much worse than it was back when I was a swimmer and even in college.  I am not sure what to attribute this to, other than most of my focus for training is bicycling where very little balance is required and your feet are guided by a pedal stroke and locked in place to a shoe.  I cannot knock bicycling to much as it has kept me in pretty good shape over the years; it has however, seemed to lead to a number of muscle imbalance injuries.  This should motivate me to change my focus' to a specific sport to multiple sports (rehabilitation).

STRETCHES:  In addition this injury has also reaggrivated my achilles tendonitis.  I have broken out the rope stretches again and leg swings to keep me limber (as much as I can). 

REHAB EXERCISES:  Strength and balance! are the focus.  Ball grabs, clock toe touches, one leg balance on balance ball (eyes closed for advancement), pistol squats, hip raises, walk backwards on heels, abdominal exercises, flexion with band, inversion with band, calf raises (single and double), bent leg calf raises (single and double).

Sorry this is not a great post but I just had to get some stuff down on paper.