Recurring Fibula Bruise

[ExcelsiorTheFathead]

So I've consulted with Dr. Internet and have concluded that I have some kind of recurring fibula bruise. I'm currently in my 3rd season of hardbooting. The only boots I've ever owned are UPZ RC10s, purchased in 2009. I rode the first season in the stock Flo liners. The second season was in Deeluxe Speed Red, and now this season I have foam-injected Surefoots with orthotics. I have a recurring minor pain on the out-side of my lead (front) calf, about four inches above the center of the big knob ankle bone. The pain seems to be seated right down in the bone there, which I think is the fibula. The sore area is at least a couple of inches below the top of the boot cuff. The pain isn't debilitating, but it annoys me.

I first got this pain during the first week of my first season of hardbooting (2009) when my board dove into some really soft snow and immediately stopped while my body kept going. My thought was that I got a bone bruise from severely straining the fibula in compression as my leg flexed to the side above the boot cuff. The pain continued through the season but completely healed over the summer. Last season the pain started up again. Normal smooth riding doesn't seem to aggravate it, but crashing and hard chattering stops make it sore. Again, it completely went away over the summer but is back now that I am riding (and crashing).

I ride a variety of bindings, including Snowpro step-ins, Ibex, and TD3SW. In general I have modest amounts of heel lift on the back and toe lift on the front, with a little inward canting on the back. With TD3s I also have a little inward canting on the front. No canting on the boot cuffs. I feel no pressure from the liner or shell in the area that gets sore. The sore area is not red or inflamed at all, and there is no evidence of rubbing or friction. I'm 5'7", 135-140 pounds with a 19" stance and typically ride angles around 57/54. I never ride in walk mode.

Could this situation be aggravated by some kind of boot or stance issue? Could it be alleviated with some kind of change?

Anybody know what kind of imaging (MRI, X-ray, etc) is best for this kind of bone thing? I'd have to pay cash, so if I decide to get a picture taken I want to shop around for the best deal.

[Pat Donnelly]

Try one thing at a time in an attempt to isolate what may or may not work. One thing to try would be to increase your angles from 57/54 to 65/60 to reduce the pressure/resistance.

Shintronics may help?

http://www.bomberonline.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=31490

http://www.manoove.com/

[Beckmann AG]

One could reasonably conclude that excessive and perhaps acute pressure is being applied to the area in question, or that tissue in that area is under tension, likely reflexive. Or a combination of the two.

Your descriptions of the board and its behavior suggest that the tip of the board on the heel-side turn is biting off more than it can chew.

Inboard cant of the rear binding (how much is "a little"?) will often put more of the stress of edging on the front lateral boot cuff, so maybe back off on that. Similarly, you may want to go ever so slightly outward on the front binding. (As in only 1 or two degrees).

Which binding were you riding when you first crashed/noticed the pain?

[jburrill]

Classic boot bang. I used to get it when I rode full time. Same area. It would come and go. And would sometimes really hurt especially in a crash or chatter situation. Sometimes the only thing I could do about it was just to give it a break. My other method was simply to switch to soft boots for a couple of days until that caused soreness it its own spot just below the alpine one.

I found some foam rubber inserts/shims for liner tounges. You could set them around your calves as well. They could attach anywhere around your lower leg and seemed to work quite well. I cant remember what they were called.

You could back off the foreward lean in that boot or shorten your stance a little. Or try using a 3 degree cant angled back to match your binding angle to take the pressure off.

[Hilux]

Someone suggested mouse pads ie neoprene as a cheap alternative for me. I cut a 1/4" (just an estimate) mousepad in half, wrapped it against my shin and around just past the tongue and it works wonders! The only thing I've yet to determine if it's going to cause extra pressure points but perhaps it's soft and thin enough that it won't.

[Puddy Tat]

Boot liners with tongues (including Flos) did the same thing to me. I eventually noticed that the pain was in line with the edge of the liner tongue so I switched to a full wrap thermo and the pain was pretty much eliminated.

Dave

Update. Nope I eventually got the same pain from full wrap thermos.

Edited February 27, 2012 by Puddy Tat

[big canuck]

definitley helped me out. I still wear mine all the time. Pats advice on the angles helped me too now that i think about it, and those are exactly the angles i run

My $0.02

k

[ExcelsiorTheFathead]

Thanks all for the information.

The injury originally happened when I was using my Snowpro FAST step-ins, and I still seem to use these bindings more than any other. It is hard to know how much inward cant I have on the rear. Under the heel receiver I have one flat riser block with a slightly tilted block above that. I'd guess that it is 3 degrees or less, based on comparisons to my 3/3 TD3SW setup. It is certainly less than when using the 7 degree wedge that came with my IBEX bindings. With TD3s I have tried a 6 degree disk in the back but didn't like it as much as on the front.

I do hit heelsides pretty hard, but I think that I am balanced in normal riding, and not aggressively pushing my body forward. I think that the injury mostly stems from crashing and those rare episodes of violent chattering stops.

Is it boot bang when one has no evidence of friction or rubbing on the skin? I do have a pair of shintronics that I bought for making soft boots seem tighter. I have low-volume calves and ankles, so the extra padding helps me crank down on soft boot cuffs. Also, my RC10s already have a beefy top velcro strap. My current liners are foam injected, and I am quite happy with them. They fit like custom molded foam foot condoms, with no voids or pressure points. I suppose that more padding could give the fibula extra cushion when I wreck, preventing it from being stressed so much by the top of the cuff.

I increased my angles a little bit today, and I think it helps. But there is no way I can go above 60 degrees unless I get even narrower boards. As soon as the end of the toe piece comes inboard of the vertical plane of the board's edge, my ability to get enough edge pressure starts to crap out terribly. I'm going to swap my TD3s on now and try the outward cant thing in the morning.

[ursle]

Thanks all for the information.

The injury originally happened when I was using my Snowpro FAST step-ins, and I still seem to use these bindings more than any other. It is hard to know how much inward cant I have on the rear. Under the heel receiver I have one flat riser block with a slightly tilted block above that. I'd guess that it is 3 degrees or less, based on comparisons to my 3/3 TD3SW setup. It is certainly less than when using the 7 degree wedge that came with my IBEX bindings. With TD3s I have tried a 6 degree disk in the back but didn't like it as much as on the front.

I do hit heelsides pretty hard, but I think that I am balanced in normal riding, and not aggressively pushing my body forward. I think that the injury mostly stems from crashing and those rare episodes of violent chattering stops.

Is it boot bang when one has no evidence of friction or rubbing on the skin? I do have a pair of shintronics that I bought for making soft boots seem tighter. I have low-volume calves and ankles, so the extra padding helps me crank down on soft boot cuffs. Also, my RC10s already have a beefy top velcro strap. My current liners are foam injected, and I am quite happy with them. They fit like custom molded foam foot condoms, with no voids or pressure points. I suppose that more padding could give the fibula extra cushion when I wreck, preventing it from being stressed so much by the top of the cuff.

I increased my angles a little bit today, and I think it helps. But there is no way I can go above 60 degrees unless I get even narrower boards. As soon as the end of the toe piece comes inboard of the vertical plane of the board's edge, my ability to get enough edge pressure starts to crap out terribly. I'm going to swap my TD3s on now and try the outward cant thing in the morning.

I agree with Beckmann AG about the outward canting, set up away from pressure, your body's telling you to, too.

You have a good grip on "top" of boot tightness, no slop allowed.

I disagree about needing the toe at the edge of the board to get edge pressure, your knees are pressuring the edges far more then your toes, and if you can ride at higher angles to let the bone bruise heal you'll enjoy the ride, even with outward canting your bone will need to be left alone for a period and raising the angles will accomplish that.imho,ymmv

As you turn the TD3 cant up more you turn down the amount of lift, so if you turn the cant 25 degrees the lift is now 4ish degrees not 6

[philw]

Not sure what it is, of course. I just know that I used to get "shin bang", if that's what you're describing, when I used race ski boots. The pain would be on the shin of my leading leg only, and it would go away after a few days of riding. Later with Indy boots (thermo liners) I'd have some of the same thing, again disappearing once I'd warmed up in a season. Last season I switched to Head boots and now I don't get it any more, all other settings remaining unchanged.

So in my case at least the issue was something to do with the shape of the boot as pressed against by my leading leg. You could possible ameliorate that by tweaking things; the most obvious to me would be the forward lean on the boot and how it's fastened. I ride with a relatively upright front boot, so I can push on the front of the board with that leg.... I think that's why I'd take damage there with stiffer boots; I assume that my newer boots, being softer, simply bang less, so the issue's less.

One thing which helped me get past the issue quicker at the start of the season was Ibuprofen gel applied locally.

[ExcelsiorTheFathead]

This thread has a few similarities to the recent "Leg Pain" thread, so I thought I'd kick in an update. In recent weeks I've been able to reduce the pain quite a bit. In order from largest effect to smallest (guessing), here is what I did:

- I ride with the front foot cuff (the foot in question) latched one position looser than before. A seemingly small difference, but I think it allows the Fib to move around more without going into deep compression strain when my leg bends laterally at the top of the cuff towards the outside-front. I'm pretty certain that this issue has been bone bruising in compression, rather than any kind of shin bang.

- I replaced the standard UPZ RC10 black tongue with the softer red tongues. This softens up the whole boot, perhaps making the overall stiffness more appropriate for my 135 lb weight.

- I increased my angles overall, to maybe 62 degrees on the front. Because my new boards for this season are narrower than my old ones, the problems I had before of not being able to execute hard edge stops hasn't come up (yet).

- On my TD3SWs I am using a little outward cant on the front.

- On my SnowPro FAST step-ins, I have removed the inward cant on the back foot and now have straight heel/toe lift only.

- Current avatar notwithstanding, I am crashing less. I also make a point to lift my board out well out of the snow when I wash or chatter out. Once I'm sliding on my back or front, I just slide (unless I'm going to hit something). The strains induced by trying to stop a slide by putting the board down into the snow in front of you are not worth the risk, thus the avatar pic.