Olympic Gymnasts Strive to Keep Feet Healthy

The Olympics have American’s captivated and rooting for their favorite athlete’s. Most of these athlete’s have spent their entire lives working towards winning an Olympic gold metal. That type of dedication has tremendous impact on an athlete’s body; good and bad. The plus side is that each athlete has diligently worked towards optimizing their body to be in the best physical shape of their lives. The down side is that continuous practice, especially in gymnasts, is that they are prone to feet, ankle, and heel pain.

The men’s and women’s gymnastic teams were suffering from foot injuries just prior to the start of the Olympics. McKayla Maroney suffered from a sore right foot and on the first day of the Olympic trials Sam Mikulak sprained his left ankle during a vault run. Podiatrists are part of the Olympic’s medical team, specifically for these reasons. They play an integral part of keeping our athlete’s in peak performance to help them bring the gold back to America.

Because gymnasts don’t wear shoes or braces on their feet that would hinder traction from the map, they perform barefooted. This can lead to a variety of foot conditions; heel pain, arch pain, cracked heel, athlete’s foot, ligament strains, stress fractures, heel bruises, and swollen growth plates. Keep in mind that most gymnasts are still very young and their bodies are growing while they put a tremendous amount of strain on their lower extremities. Their feet support not only their weight, but also have to absorb the amount of force associated with many of the jumps. So how do gymnasts keep their feet healthy?

• Tape feet properly
• Wear specific shoes for specific activates
• Apparatus shoes are used for dismounts.
• Vault shoes have padding on the soles to absorb shock from the hard landing. 
• Ice the bottoms of the feet
• Rest feet after practice & between events
• Stretch feet and lower extremities before & after events

Image by dearbarbie. (2012). DSC_9571. Flickr. Retrieved from http://www.flickr.com/photos/dearbarbie/7675694980/

Gymnastics Rescue. (2012). Shoes and Foot Injuries for Gymnasts. Retrieved from http://www.gymnasticsrescue.com/Shoes_and_Feet.htm

Heel That Pain. (2012). Gymnastics and Heel Pain. Retrieved from http://www.heel-that-pain.com/heel_pain/gymnastics.php