You've got to be kidding me. Nike Mercurial Vapor SL cleats, $400:
Defying science and expectations, Nike's newest creation is crafted almost entirely of carbon fiber. Carbon fiber, that revolutionary material used in jets, offers unbelievable strength with incredible lightness. It took Nike three years to design and produce this incredible version of the Vapor. The outsole plate is seven layers of carbon composite material interwoven with TPU and polyurethane. This eliminates the lasting board and puts the foot closer to the ground for a smooth feel. A reinforcing rib offers support. The cleats and stud tips are injected molded to the plate for a strong, single outsole piece, which creates incredible durability. An internal heel cradle keeps your foot securely in place. The upper is the first boot to have a molded carbon fiber upper for an incredible performance and feel. UPPER: Carbon fiber. Internal carbon fiber chassis creates instant acceleration. OUTSOLE: Carbon fiber outsole with injected bladed studs for durability and stability on firm, natural surfaces. WEIGHT: (6.7 oz.) Made in Italy.
What part of the cleats is the "lasting board", and why is it good it was eliminated? I'm looking at the cleats I own now, and I don't see much in the way of extraneous parts. I've never once said, "Man, the lasting board is really weighing me down. When is some ingenious designer going to come up with a way of eliminating it?"
I will concede, though, that 6.7 oz. is a VERY light cleat.
First off, I was never actually diagnosed with achilles tendinitis. They hurt like hell though, and now, after a lot of work, they're better. I think my self-diagnosis was correct, but what do I know? Anyway, here's what happened and what I did:
I played Easterns in early June with no problems, but afterwards had some achilles pain in one ankle. Pickup over the subsequent weeks made it quite a bit worse, and it ended up in both ankles. Some days were worse than others. On a good day I was aware of my achilles but could play fine, and on a bad day my first step was very painful and I probably could only manage 75% of my top speed, if that. I stayed in denial for two to four weeks (can't remember), then decided I had to take steps. So I did what I always do, which is read a lot about the problem. If you don't feel like doing all the same reading, here's what I took away from it:
In most cases it's not an inflammation problem. Instead, the tendon fibers are being damaged, and the tendon is becoming less tendon-like. There were scary MRIs somewhere of healthy tendon vs. deteriorating, and they certainly helped spur me to action. Anyway, there was a study where one group did your typical anti-inflammatory treatments (ice, ibuprofen, cortizone) while another group did strengthening exercises. At the end of the 12 weeks, the whole (I think) anti-inflammatory group was still miserable, while the whole (I think) strengthening group was much improved or cured. Sounds great, right? Unfortunately, the strengthening protocol is a bit of a pain in the ass. You do the following twice per day (!), seven days a week (!) for twelve (!!) weeks:
- 3 sets of 15 straight-leg, weighted, eccentric calf drops per leg (45/leg, 90 total).
- 3 sets of 15 bent-leg, weighted, eccentric calf drops per leg (45/leg, 90 total).
- (so that's 180 in the morning, then another 180 in the evening.)
An eccentric calf drop works like this: Stand with the balls of your feet on the edge of a step, and your heels hanging off the edge. With both feet, raise yourself up on your toes. Now stand on one foot and lower your heel as far as it will go. Put your other foot back down to raise yourself up again. The point is you are trying to NOT work the raise (concentric contraction of the calf), and are trying to super-work the lower (eccentric contraction).
The study said you should work your way up to decent extra weight. I started off with bodyweight just to try it, jumped up to 20 pounds almost immediately, and finished the 12 weeks at 60 pounds (attached to a dip belt). The study also said the participants generally pushed through pain, but what does that mean, really? Personally, I found my achilles might start off sore in a given session, but would usually improve over the course of the session. The study didn't say anything about whether you should lay off other activity, so I chose not too. Kept playing pickup twice a week (at times quite painful), doing other workouts, etc. Not sure if this was the right thing to do or not.
The other thing I did was borrow a night splint (I've never ordered from them before, so can't vouch for them) and wear it overnight on whichever achilles felt worse (wish I had two!). I feel like this helped, but it's hard to be sure. There is no doubt the splinted achilles was less stiff and sore first thing in the morning. Anyway, if I were buying new I'd probably try a couple of the sock-like variety (another vendor I've never tried) as the bulky ones are, well, bulky, and more expensive.
Finally, the last thing I did was work the calf stretch I described in my My Key Stretches as often as possible. I can now get my hips to the wall, which is a pretty big improvement from where I started 12 weeks ago.
Anyway, the bottom line is that in the first four weeks I wasn't sure if it was helping. I suspected it might be, but still had painful days. In the second four weeks I was sure it was helping, but I wasn't all better yet. By the third four weeks I was basically pain-free. At this point I'm all done with the program and the achilles don't affect my play at all. I'm doing maintenance sets every other day or so, and we'll see how that goes. I still get stiffness in the achilles from time to time, but so far no more pain. We'll see if maintenance workouts keep the problem in check.
I'm not a fan of these injury posts. On the one side, I do like sharing the information. On the other side, lots of what I post is first-hand information, and all that implies...
Anyway, ever since the ankle sprain last year, my achilles on that foot has been threatening to go all tendinitisy on me. I was going to do piles of research and share it with you, but my teammate Jon has had chronic problems with his achilles for years, and is a wealth of information. So I have the luxury of not writing this post myself, but instead can cobble it together from our e-mail dialog (edited lightly, emphasis added):
Jim said:
I am now on the IR (hopefully just for a week) with tendinitis in my Achilles. I have been flirting with it ever since the ankle sprain, and Easterns finally brought it on for real. Played pickup yesterday, but it was unpleasant. I'm hoping a good ice, rest, and ibu regimen will get me back on track pronto.
Jon replied:
Bummer. Take it from me, achilles problems can last forever, but hopefully this isn't the case with you. Rest is key, I think. Hopefully that will take care of it. In any event, I've attached an article and also included a link below that I thought were pretty informative with regards to the achilles tendons. Turns out there's no such thing as achilles tendonitis -- it's really a tendonosis (tendinitis implies inflamation, but there's no evidence that inflamation is part of the problem in achilles injury -- hence ice and ibuprofen aren't really helpful in this case). [from my super-quick research I think both conditions exist, but certainly where chronic injury is concerned it sounds like tendonosis is the correct term.] According to the medical literature, the only treatments with good clinical evidence of effectiveness are rest and "heavy-load eccentric calf-muscle training":
Sports Injury Bulletin - Achilles Tendinitis
I've been doing something similar to the Walt Reynolds exercise for a long time (recommended by my physical therapist), and am 4 weeks into the program from the Swedish study. It makes things worse before it makes them better, but it does seem that it's starting to having positive effects now. My physical therapist also gave me a a variety of strength and balance exercises, particularly ones to work on leg muscles that are important to stabilization, but I think these are actually pretty similar to some of the stuff you are already doing.
Jim replied:
Wow, thanks Jon! Great article. I'll have to post that on my fitness blog (which is more and more looking suspiciously like an injury blog).
So you do the Walt and Swedish exercises, and you also play? I guess what I'm asking is, you've just been playing through the pain for years, don't take rest, and have added these exercises into the mix, right?
I ask because I'm trying to figure out if I should just stop stressing the achilles (i.e. no playing) until I'm pain-free, or if I should do rehab and play simultaneously. The pickle is not wanting to fall behind on conditioning.
Jon replied:
Since it sounds like you're going to do some of these rehab exercises, and wonder whether you need to take off time from ultimate, I'll give you some more detail on how I manage the achilles problems, since it's kind of complicated.
First, back about the time when I broke my collarbone in 2001, I was struggling with a lot of pain in the achilles, and I got an appointment with a physical therapist. He made me rest completely for a few weeks, until all pain from the achilles was gone, and in the mean time made me an orthotic to control my overpronation. I think there would not be any problem with doing exercise that doesn't stress the achilles during this time (e.g. burpees, weights, maybe biking), but since I had a broken collarbone there wasn't much else I could do anyway. After the rest, he started me on an exercise that's roughly similar to the Walt exercise. The way I do the exercise is the following. I stand on, say, my right leg on the bottom step of the stairs, facing the floor (as opposed to the higher steps), and I keep my left leg straight and suspended in the air, and then I lower my left leg down slowly, keeping it straight, until the heel of my left leg touches the ground, and then lift it back up again. I repeat this for 30 reps, and then do the other leg. This works the calf muscle eccentrically, and also gets the rest of the leg involved and improves balance. Once I got good at this, I switched to a stable stool that is a bit higher than my first step, so I can get a deeper knee bend going.
After doing this for a few weeks, my PT gave me bunch of other exercises to do in addition, mostly with dumbells, for strengthening the legs and for overall body fitness. Most of these are very similar to the dumbell exercises described in Ross Enamait's book. A lot of lunges and shoulder presses and so forth. Sounds similar to what you are doing already. These exercises especially worked the hamstrings, glutes, hips, and groin.
Another exercise he gave me that is more achilles-specific is the following: Get on a treadmill and set it to maximum incline at a very low (walking) speed. Then run / hop sideways (not crossing over legs) for four minutes on each side. Kind of like how you would run sideways while positioning yourself to play defense in ultimate. This really works the calf muscles, and also works the feet and ankles in a different plane than most typical exercises. I find this one to be quite helpful, but you'd need a treadmill. You could also just do it out on the street or on a grassy field, although I think it works a lot better if you can do it uphill. I find this exercise makes a noticeable difference when I do it regularly.
After doing these routines religiously 2-3 times per week for a couple of months, I started playing ultimate again in the spring of 2002, and my achilles were completely pain free for months. But at some point in the summer, when the ground got hard and I played in a tough 2-day tournament, my achilles eventually started bothering me again. I then took a little time off from ultimate, maybe a week or two, but in the mean time continued to stick with all the rehab exercises along with interval workouts on a bike and, after a little while, light jogging. Then I came back and things were manageable. This pattern essentially repeats itself every year, and is not so bad. But it would be better if I could be pain free throughout the season.
This year, after feeling a bit of achilles soreness after WMO, I decided to get more aggressive with the rehab exercises. I've been doing the Walt-like exercise almost every day, and started doing the Swedish exercises almost twice-daily as well, and I've made sure that I do the sideways-running about 3 times a week (I often stop doing that when I switch from treadmill to outdoor running with the nice weather). I had never done the Swedish exercises before. They feel easy while you're doing them, but then I found that my calves were incredibly sore for about two weeks. I started this about 4 weeks ago, and continued to play ultimate once a week throughout. This is part of the reason I sucked at pickup a couple of weeks ago, as my calves were so sore I felt like they were going to collapse the whole time. After about a couple of weeks, the calf soreness has been gradually subsiding. My achilles were pretty sore after Saturday at Easterns, but have been rock solid and pain-free otherwise (I played Sunday with no pain). So in short, I have been playing through it while doing the rehab exercises, and I think it's working OK. We'll see what happens when the ground gets hard.
The link below from the Carleton University sports medicine department provides the details of a Swedish-style program for the achilles. In their program, you're supposed to avoid sports for two weeks while you start the calf exercises, but then you resume sports after two weeks.
Rehab for Chronic Achilles Tendinitis
It's also worth noting that in the Swedish study, they did not wait for the achilles pain to go away before starting people on the eccentric calf exercises.
Jon then followed up with this:
Ah, one crucial thing I forgot to mention in my description of the "Walt-like" exercise that I do on the bottom step. When you are standing on your right leg, and lowering your left heel to the ground, you lower the left heel by bending your right leg at the knee. And vice-versa when you stand on your left leg.
Jim asked for clarification:
You keep the foot on the step flat on the ground, right? As in, your heel stays down and your Achilles stretches as your knee flexes?
Jon replied:
That's right, you've got it exactly right. The foot on the step stays flat, and you bend the knee on that leg. You keep your other leg straight. The heel of the straight leg eventually touches the ground below the step as you bend the knee of the leg that's on the step.
There, that does it! About the only thing I found independently of Jon was a note (with no medical backup) that wearing a night split (commonly prescribed for plantar fasciitis) can also be helpful. The splint holds your foot angle at 90-degrees (or even a touch higher) keeping your achilles stretched throughout the night. Without the splint, in a relaxed state your foot hangs away from the shin, keeping the achilles in a shortened position all night. I borrowed my dad's splint (which was the thing that finally allowed him to gain ground on his plantar fasciitis after months of frustration), and I seemed to improve, but have no idea how much the splint contributed, if at all. Could have just been the rest.
Finally got to play some disc outside yesterday! Very windy Goaltimate. The gang has had some lovely weather and sevens for Ultimate previous to yesterday, but conflicts have heartbreakingly kept me away. Anyway, aside from one gymnasium session mid-winter, this was my first play since the ankle sprain closed out my 2005 season. I was curious how I'd feel, as I've been training pretty hard all winter, but with a conspicuous lack of running. Would all those burpees translate? I was worried, as in my experience you can be in great shape and still suck at running if you haven't been doing it, but I was pretty happy with the day. Legs and lungs felt great, although I'm sure the wind and lack of full-field Ultimate helped with that. And I had to quit early with a "deep blister", the second of my life. Let me tell you, when the FixingYourFeet guy says:
Am I a stickler about calluses? You bet. I've seen the grimaces on the faces of athletes who have deep blisters that cannot be repaired without a lot of pain. I've seen them hobble off, knowing it won't get any better.
... he knows what he's talking about. Much worse than a surface blister. I didn't even think my calluses were too thick, but I'll definitely be doing some maintenance. There, that's more than enough about my feet.
Man, White Mountain Open is only like four weeks away! Psyched.
Awhile back I mentioned SOLE Custom Footbeds, which are insoles you bake in your oven to mold to your feet. The good folks there noticed my post, and sent me a pair to try. I mentioned this to a PT friend of mine, and she expressed some misgivings. She had seen them before, and thought they looked great "unbaked" but was worried that if I baked and molded them, I'd basically squish away the arch support, and I'd end up with a set of insoles that merely conformed to to my faulty over-pronating architecture rather than providing the support I need. I raised this concern with the representative at the company who set me up with a pair, and this was her response:
Your PT friend is 100% correct!. By molding the insoles, the arch lowers in order to mold correctly to your foot. However, by not molding the insoles, the aggressive arch remains intact and will provide you with additional arch support. However, it's tricky to assess exactly how much arch support you need. I recommend that you do not initially mold the insoles to your feet, just wear them as is. After a week or so of use, reevaluate the support the insole provides to both your feet. If you find that the support is great without going through the molding process, leave the insoles the way they are. If you find that both insoles have too much support, proceed to mold the insoles.
So I tried them unbaked, and I really like them as is. This is lousy news from a review perspective, as I can't really tell you anything about the baking process. Sorry not to be more help on that front, but hopefully some of the information above will be useful to anyone considering buying a pair.
Custom orthodics can help with all kinds of foot problems, but usually involve a pricey visit to a health professional. Outside just plugged SOLE Custom Footbeds, which you bake in your oven, stick in your shoes, then lace up and mold to your feet. A quick testimonial from the author:
I've always been bothered by high arches, weak ankles, and bad knees. Using the Calgary, Alberta, company's inserts, I trained for and ran a marathon without any foot, ankle, or knee pain. Want more proof that these things work? Consider that Nike's ACG Adventure Racing Team uses them—instead of a Swoosh option—in their shoes.
$40. I'm always leery when something sounds too good to be true, but it sure beats the cost of having an orthopedist mold me a set. Tempting, especially given my history.
I have a friend who is a fabulous Ultimate Frisbee player. For years he has struggled with "TFD" (Total Foot Destruction) due to blisters. No combination of socks or cleats could prevent this. I too struggle with blisters, but not to the same degree (probably because, sadly, I don't cut nearly as hard as this fellow). Anyway, he recently hit upon a solution and has been singing its praises: instead of socks, wear two pairs of polypropylene sock liners. He swears by it. I gave it a go, and the results were very promising. I wasn't willing to give up the cushioning of the outer sock, but had taken to wearing two pairs of poly liners under a pair of cotton socks, and was pleased with the results.
But then I found the socks that I think make this technique complete and bulletproof: two pairs of WrightSock Double-Layer Coolmax Socks with a cotton pair on top. The Wright socks really are double layer, but they're nice and thin, so this approach basically puts five layers between you and your shoes without feeling absurdly bulky. I have yet to tourney-test this combination, but I have run through two five-hour practices shod thusly, and my feet have never felt better.
I think I paid like eight bucks a pair at EMS for mine, so this Roadrunner deal seems like it might be good, depending on shipping. I have not done much bargain shopping for these yet though, so definitely take a look around. Here are some Froogle results. That's sorted by "best match", so you could try resorting by price, but that usually pulls up some dicey-looking vendors.
