Can you run on a broken toe? What about a sprained toe?

Googling the question ‘Can you run with a broken toe’ is not something runners usually do until they have to deal with the problem themselves. And that’s exactly what happened to me when I found myself Googling on a Monday morning. This article details my personal experience along with the advice I received from doctors during my injury.

Unfortunately, broken toes happen quite frequently. A broken toe is not often a running injury because runners often injure their toes while doing anything other than running. A fractured toe, though, will undoubtedly affect your ability to run and affect your training.

However, most runners find it hard to have to stop running for a while. That’s why, many runners will push through discomfort to complete a run or keep a training schedule. But is that something that’s safe?

This article covers everything you need to know about running on a broken toe and will help you answer the question can you run on a broken toe.

How To Know If Your Toe Is Broken?

First things first, it’s important to know if your toe is even broken or fractured. In fact, a broken and sprained toe can look an awful lot alike. However,  a broken toe looks much worse and feels much worse than a stubbed toe.

Symptoms of a Broken Toe

• Severe bruising (on the entire toe, or possibly to the foot)
• Swelling
• Numbness and tingling
• Aching, throbbing
• Discoloration
• Tenderness to the touch and painful to walk
• Appearing to look crooked or misshapen with some deformity (at this point you need to go see a Dr, you don’t want it to heal poorly)

Lest you think this is going to just be generic advice, let me 100% say I have been through it and I know the physical and mental anguish that you’re going through!!

This was me being all zen right before injuring myself!

Coming home the frentic energy that is my creative mind began. I was bouncing from computer to kitchen to make my green smoothie, when SHWACK.

Nailing the chair with my toe, releasing a string of expletives {which science has proven to help with pain}. I paused and went back to work. Because seriously, who hasn’t stubbed their toe.

An hour later I jumped up from my desk, then promptly pulled my foot up because it hurt.

It was purple and swollen. Now that was unlike any stubbed toe I’d ever seen and by the time David came home we were both convinced it was a broken toe.

Those of you who follow me on Facebook saw this frantic message {priorities right?!}

Getting Checked by a Doctor

Depending on the severity of your injury, you might want to get it checked by a doctor.  It is especially important to have a podiatrist look at your toe if you are experiencing severe symptoms.

Some of these signs include sores, deformity, redness, or open wounds close to the toe, as well as worsening or new pain that is unaffected by medication. Making sure it’s treated correctly will help reduce the risk of arthritis in the future.

Your doctor may even perform an X-ray to check the injured toe to confirm whether or not it is fractured.

Does a Broken Toe Require Surgery?

The good news is that while a fractured toe may need treatment, fixing it usually doesn’t require a lot of effort. It is quite uncommon for a broken toe to require surgery.

Your doctor will first try to figure out if any parts of the bone have moved when it broke. If they have, he or she will probably need to move them back into their correct positions.

This process is known as ‘reduction,’ and it is often possible to place the bones correctly from the outside. In fact, it’s rarely necessary to surgically open the toe in order to move the bones directly.

So you most likely won’t need surgery for your broken toe even if you’re experiencing a lot of pain and need to get it realigned.

How Soon Can You Run with a Broken Toe?

It can take up to 6 to 8 weeks for broken toes to fully recover. The length of healing time will be determined by the severity of the break, the sort of recovery methods used, and which toe is broken.

Most broken toes require immobilization and stability to recover during the healing process. How soon you can run depends on which toe you broke, the severity of your injury, and the level of pain you’re experiencing as a result of it.

According to Toe

The pinky toe is often the most frequently injured toe. It plays an important role in balancing but has little involvement in weight-bearing. And so, running with a broken pinky toe is often more feasible than other toes. But it’s important to note that a broken pinky toe (or little toe) gets a lot more pressure from the side of your running shoe and could take longer to comfortably wear shoes again.

Middle Toes can be buddy taped together for stability and healing, so if you have broken your middle toe, you might be able to start running a lot sooner than if it were some other toe.

Your big toe is the major driver of your push off the ground. A broken big toe is likely going to take a couple of weeks before you can start to run without serious pain. And potentially 6-8 weeks before you should really be running at all. Just remember that starting too early and turning a small break into a big issue means a lot more time off.

By Severity

The healing process for a broken toe varies depending on the severity of the break. A mild fracture, or hairline crack in the bone, can often be treated at home with rest and immobilization. In this case, you may be able to start running again in as little as two weeks.

A moderate fracture, where one or more pieces of the bone have broken off and moved out of place, may require immobilization with a splint or cast to keep the pieces in place while they heal. Depending on the severity of the break and the doctor’s instructions, you may be able to start running again after 4-6 weeks.

A severe fracture, where one or more pieces of the bone have been broken into multiple pieces and shifted far out of place, will take the longest to heal. You should not start running until your doctor has given you the all-clear, which could be up to 8 weeks.

How to Run with a Sprained or Broken Toe?

The absolute top three tips are pretty basic:

1. If you can’t put on a shoe without pain, it’s not time to run.
2. It’s going to hurt, so run to your pain tolerance
3. Tape your toes for support

But let’s dig in a little deeper.

Days 1-5 by no means could I put on a shoe and walking on hard surfaces wasn’t too comfortable.

However, I found on the carpet I had pretty free range to move around, so I did Strength Training, HIIT workouts, Pilates, Yoga, whatever struck my fancy.

I had been on a seriously good roll with training and I wasn’t happy at the interruption, so I made it work.

By day 6, I could put a shoe on again and that’s where the tips really start to come in handy.

Per usual, my pain is your gain because I learned a lot from this that I’ve been able to share with the athletes I coach.

Step 1: Combat Inflammation

Step one I knew was to do everything I could to combat inflammation and get the swelling down. This was my process for how to heal a broken toe!

• First few days I did take ibuprofen, which I never do.
• Iced a few times (now knowing the new science I would NOT have done this). It numbs pain, but slows healing.
• Took more potent Turmeric, again to keep fighting inflammation
• CBD oil at night – more inflammation fighting
• Avoided all shoes and socks for at least 5 days
• Applied a blended essential oil twice daily << I swear this had the biggest impact. I have never had a bruise look better so quickly or swelling drop so fast. More on essential oils for runners.
• Did Cryotherapy on Day 5 {again based on the new science would have skipped this UNLESS I needed to run that day because of say a race}

Day 6 – We have lift off!

I could put on a shoe, BUT had to make a couple adjustments for it to be bearable and I think these are key!

A broken pinky toe might need more time because even with the different lacing, you’ll find more pressure on the toe.

See below for what made a run bearable.

Step 2: Buddy Taping for Toe Pain Relief

If you break a toe other than your big toe while running, buddy taping your toes together can help you run with less pain and less stress on your injured toe.

Buddy taping is when you use medical tape to secure your broken toe to the toe next to it that is healthy and not broken. For instance, if you have a broken pinky toe and are attempting to run, bind the pinky toe and ring finger toe together.

Buddy taping stabilizes the broken toe, reduces any balance loss, and helps stop unnecessary movement. It eases discomfort and might provide the broken toe with the stability it needs to heal.

How much it’ll help you depends from person to person. For me taping the toes together hurt worse because of the increased pressure.

But if you want to know how to tape a broken toe, it’s pretty straightforward:

• Gently pull it next to another toe
• Put a small piece of gauze or a cotton ball between the two
• Using sports tape (cut kinesiology tape works too)
• Lightly wrap tape around both toes so they are now joined together

Personally, instead of buddy taping, I found wearing Injinji Toe Socks provided additional padding and space between my toes which felt tremendously better.

Step 3: Shoelacing Techniques for Pain Relief

I realized that my broken toe felt much better on a treadmill.

Outside any little angle of the ground requires your toes to work harder to keep you balanced. After a mile or two I felt my toe beginning to scream.

Possibly most important was relacing the shoe to reduce pressure around the toes. I couldn’t leave the shoe on until I’d made this change.

There are a lot of great run shoe lacing techniques which can make an average shoe your favorite shoe, so don’t feel like you need to keep it exactly as it comes out of the box!

1. Here you start by threading up through the first hole on the bottom with a ladder to the next hole. This pulls up the toe box, which can create additional space and prevent it from pushing down on the toes.

2. Lace as normal and then at the top, utilize ALL the available holes.

Usually there are two holes on the top of the shoe and we only take advantage of the front one, but you want to prevent any heel slippage as that could allow your foot to move forward crushing the toes {HINT could be why you lose toenails!}.

3. Instead — lace through the first hole to the back hole creating a little loop through which you will thread the opposite lace before tying the shoe.

Can You Run On A Broken Toe?

Back to the original question of whether or not you can, or more accurately should, run on a broken toe.

What if it’s just a sprain and not a break, does that make it better or worse?

In a weird twist, sometimes a sprain can take longer to heal. So I’m going to go back to what I said to start: be your own best judge of pain and if you’re making things worse.
Clearly I’m not a doctor, but I’ve worked with thousands of runners so this is what helped me and what they have said helped too. So the above techniques are what got me back in to my running shoes after about a week and then slowly feeling comfortable putting more pressure on it with more miles.

I have talked with a couple Physical Therapists and the consensus is this:

See a Doctor

If it’s crooked or pain spreading up the foot or pain that wouldn’t stop, go see a doctor. You likely need to identify where it broke because that could make a difference and you don’t want to run making things worse.

Give It Enough Time

Try taking 2-3 weeks off for swelling and pain to subside.

Or like me, keep testing it until you decide you can run without severe pain and evaluate your toe post run. If the bruising returns, you may have torn a tendon rather than broken it and need more time off {plus a doctor!}.

Your big toe is likely going to be a bigger problem than my small toe.

If you’re altering your gait STOP. This is going to lead to a host of other injuries.

Don’t Medicate It Away

Don’t try to mask the pain with drugs and run.

If it hurts, stop…again you don’t want to make things worse or prolong healing. Additionally, running and using NSAIDs leads to a host of other issues like harming your liver!

Seriously if it hurts, stop. There will be those who have it happen prior to a race and the truth is yes you could probably force yourself to tolerate the pain, but you’ll likely also change your gait creating pain in other areas and prolonging the healing of your toe.

You certainly aren’t going to PR, so put it in perspective… one race or months on the side lines?

Can You Exercise with a Broken Toe?

If you are indeed sidelined from running, the good news is you can still exercise with a broken toe. It’s time to get focused on your upper body work, core work and you might even find swimming doesn’t aggravate it.

As you saw in my story above, I ended up doing a lot of barefoot things on the carpet because that felt ok. So be willing to change things up and test things out.

A broken toe healing time is usually around 6 weeks, which means your job during that time is to do all the things that are going to help you come back strong.

You absolutely get to wallow in the frustration for a few days, that’s step 1 of getting over an injury.

Test out the buddy taping that was recommended to me, maybe it will work for you! You simply get some Rocktape and without pressure tape it to the toe next to it. See if that feels better, gives you more support.

Can Runners Strength Train with a Broken Toe?

Even the most determined runner won’t be able to speed up their recovery from a broken toe, as bone healing takes time. You may and should strength train, though, just as you would when you are healthy or after any injury.

Maintaining as much strength as possible in the muscles surrounding your foot, ankle, and calf when injured will ensure that your running performance declines as little as possible when you restart running.

Research has also shown that strength training can help runners run faster and avoid injuries.

What Cross-Training Can Runners Do With a Broken Toe?

Low-impact cross-training with a broken toe is a safer approach to maintaining your fitness while your broken toe heals.

Cycling, swimming, aqua jogging, and using an elliptical machine are some examples of effective cross-training exercises when recovering from a broken toe. However, any type of exercise is acceptable as long as it doesn’t cause pain.

Anti-gravity treadmills, such as the Alter-G, are an excellent method to maintain your mileage in a healthy and less uncomfortable manner.

These devices use differential pressure to lessen the burden on your joints and your body weight, which can be enough to enable you to run when you wouldn’t normally be able to do so if you had a broken toe.

Looking for more to treat your feet right?

• How to Prevent a Black Toenail from Running
• 11 Common Causes of Running Foot Pain
• How to prevent running blisters (and what to do if they happen)
• Should you use running insoles?
• When to replace your running shoes?

Other ways to connect with Amanda
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Facebook Community Chatter: RunToTheFinish

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