Stress Fractures in Figure Skating

[CrazyKittenLady]

A very similar case is Russia's Alexei Erokhov, also with 3 fractures, yet able to land harder quads than 4T/S by now. Only, in his case, I believe it was the non-landing foot ankle? I don't recall, but @CrazyKittenLady would know more for sure!

Alexey suffered a stress fracture in his right foot (his landing foot, and his picking foot for Flip and Lutz) in the season after he won the Junior Worlds title.

Not much is known about how the initial injury occurred, but it lead to his withdrawal from both of his GP events in his first senior season. It must have happened around October 2018.
In a later video interview Alexey himself said that over-training was not the cause for the stress fracture. However, there was also a lot of talk about adding the 4F to his competition layout at the time and given what is known about the training methods of Team Tutberidze which seem to be based on countless repetitions everyone may draw their own conclusions. Fact is, an MRI revealed his picking foot was broken in three different places. He spent a couple of weeks with his leg in a cast, then did some physical therapy and then went straight back on the ice. The plan was to podium at Russian junior nationals to get another Junior Worlds assignment to defend his title and have a chance at GP spots next season. So roughly three months after his first stress fracture, in January 2019 Alexey was back in competition with two 4Ts and two 3As in his FS.

He got the ticket to Junior Worlds but never made it there because first there was the domestic Junior Cup final. On the morning after the SP, Alexey said his foot hurt so much that he could barely get out of bed. Naturally he had to withdraw from the competition and it marked the end of any dreams of defending his Junior Worlds title. Another MRI revealed a recurrence of the previous injury. This time, according to an interview from May 2019 he stayed off the ice for one and a half months, only doing physical therapy and working out in the gym. For the first week back on the ice he only practised gliding, then he began jumping. After a few days, the pain in his right foot flared up again and it turned out that the fracture wasn't properly healed after all and he had to discontinue on-ice training once more.

It isn't clear what exactly went down in 2019/20 but Alexey finally showed up for the last domestic competition of the season, the Russian Cup final. His planned program content looked promising with multiple quads announced for the FS. However, the performance itself was hard to watch. Apart from a beautiful 3A out of nowhere, the only jumps landed were a 3S, a 2T, and two 2Lo's and it was very obvious that he was in no condition to jump any quads.

Before the beginning of the next season, Alexey left Tutberidze for Viktoria Butsaeva, citing "differences in the athletic approach" as the reason for the coaching change. Butsaeva said in an interview that he came to her completely out of shape (then again, it was the first Covid spring) but managed to restore his 4T and 4S over the summer break. Alexey performed relatively well in his comeback skate in October 2020 with a reasonable layout, landing 3A's and 4S's and backloaded Flip- and Lutz combos. However, at a domestic event six weeks later, he competed SP and FS layouts without any Flips and Lutzes, making the commentator and fans wonder if anything was up. Shortly afterwards, his coach announced his withdrawal from Russian Nationals. The old injury had become acute again and doctors said that "if he wanted to have any chance to continue his career, he had to stop skating now."
Two months later, Alexey was back in competition with a normal layout but an unsuccessful skate to end the season.

Whatever magic his doctors and coaches did over the summer worked as Alexey opened the 2021/22 season with a stunning and easy 4Lo on top of his 4S and 4T and skated better than he ever did before. In training he even showed 4F again.
Alexey performed sometimes more, sometimes less successfully with a relatively stable content (a two quad SP and a three quad FS) through the next two and a half seasons.

Fast forward to the National Championship in December 2023. In the SP Alexey fell from his last jump, a 3A and was unable to complete the program. In the replay one could see how his landing foot just gave way underneath him. MRIs revealed no fracture but ligament damage. His coach said that the new injury was likely a consequence of the previous stress fractures.

Alexey had to skip the rest of the season, but he has restored all his triples already and said that he doesn't promise anything, but he believes he will compete next season. So Alexey is back to doing what he does best, which is not giving up.

Imo, it is pointless to wonder what could have been if Alexey had taken the whole season off after his initial injury. Figure skating careers are awfully short.
I do believe coaches should do everything in their power (responsibly manage the training load, educate their skaters about proper nutrition,..) to avoid stress fractures in the first place.

Sorry for the wall of text, @surimi put me up to it.

 

[4everchan]

For instance, my instinct as a normal person, never done figure skating, would be to stop right away if there was any pain. I would take a break, then try again - and if the pain persisted as bad as before or got worse, I would simply stop.

I am not a skater but I have done lots of sports... and honestly, it's difficult to stop training when in pain because often, you feel some pain, and it will go away after a couple hours/days... It's hard to evaluate if the pain is something that could become a much more severe injury or just something that will go away by itself. Of course, this is not the best attitude but it's very common.

 

[sisinka]

I can speak to Yuma's stress fracture in the 2022-23 season, the details of which he has disclosed in several interviews. ....

I can't speak to what athletes should or should not be doing, but I do think Yuma's case shows ...

Thank you for summary of Yuma's injury. There are many "small" steps in athlete's regime which have visible impact on performance.

I am slowly getting together men top 7, so I originally planned to talk about men later. But never mind.

You wrote great things in the second column, I do agree.

I hope that Yuma will continue in this trend. And if his wish to represent Japan at big event will make him blind towards his health in Olympic season like it happened in case of home World Championships, I do hope that his dad = coach will keep him down to the earth, healthy and safe.

 

[sisinka]

I would like to write a little bit about DAY OFF. I find very essential to give body enough time to relax and regenerate. And one day off in a week is part of this approach.

It helps to prevent injuries from tiredness and overloading. It also helps to recharge mentally which is also important.

https://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article/119/6/1242/70751/Overuse-Injuries-Overtraining-and-Burnout-in-Child

OVERUSE INJURIES, OVERTRAINING AND BOURNOUT IN CHILD AND ADOLESCENT ATHLETES
- The American Academy of Pediatrics Council on Sports Medicine and Fitness recommends limiting 1 sporting activity to a maximum of 5 days per week with at least 1 day off from any organized physical activity. In addition, athletes should have at least 2 to 3 months off per year from their particular sport during which they can let injuries heal, refresh the mind, and work on strength, conditioning, and proprioception in hopes of reducing injury risk.

How many skaters have at least 3 full weeks without skating, without big load off the ice? At least 3 weeks?

I googled but found only information about Russian skaters having 2 weeks of vacations, maximally 3 weeks.

Do you have some other examples or knowledge how long are vacations for figure skaters from other countries?

 

[sisinka]

I do wish that training regimens of skaters who did not get repeated stress fractures vs. those who did get stress fractures would be compared.

I always wonder what Professor Mishin and Elizaveta Tuktamysheva were doing right all those years!

Could be combo of many factors from good technique to genetics, to reasonable training loads

...I bet there are many skaters who do not disclose their stress fractures. Who knows, maybe Liza had one and took some time off to heal it and we didn't hear about it.

I would be very careful in this.
Until an athlete doesn't openly say:"No, I never had stress fracture!", I would be suspicious.

But yes, Liza is example of skater with long career.
I remember that many years back I read on some Forum, that Alexei Mishin was not hiding that he plans long career for Liza and adapts training thanks to it.
Liza is a rare example of lady keeping ultra-C element triple axel with grown-up body.

 

[sisinka]

Another extremely important thing - SLEEPING (BOTH QUALITY AND QUANTITY).

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27367265/
OPTIMIZING SLEEP TO MAXIMIZE PERFORMANCE: implications and recommendations for elite athletes
- science article from 2017
- Despite a growing body of literature demonstrating a positive relationship between sleep and optimal performance, athletes often have low sleep quality and quantity.
- Insufficient sleep among athletes may be due to scheduling constraints and the low priority of sleep relative to other training demands, as well as a lack of awareness of the role of sleep in optimizing athletic performance.
- Domains of athletic performance (e.g., speed and endurance), neurocognitive function (e.g., attention and memory), and physical health (e.g., illness and injury risk, and weight maintenance) have all been shown to be negatively affected by insufficient sleep or experimentally modeled sleep restriction.


I read a book WHY WE SLEEP by MATTHEW WALKER.
Reading the book one discovers so many mistakes being done in sleeping regime.

Matthew Walker's quotes:
"Practice does not make perfect. It is practice, followed by a night of sleep, that leads to perfection."

"Caffeine has an average half-life of five to seven hours. Let’s say that you have a cup of coffee... around 7:30 p.m. This means that by 1:30 a.m., 50 percent of that caffeine may still be active ..."

"They discovered that naps as short as twenty-six minutes in length still offered a 34 percent improvement in task performance and more than a 50 percent increase in overall alertness."

"After thirty years of intensive research, ...After sixteen hours of being awake, the brain begins to fail.
Humans need more than seven hours of sleep each night to maintain cognitive performance.
After ten days of just seven hours of sleep, the brain is as dysfunctional as it would be after going without sleep for twenty-four hours.
...Finally, the human mind cannot accurately sense how sleep-deprived it is when sleep-deprived."

"Inadequate sleep—even moderate reductions for just one week—disrupts blood sugar levels so profoundly that you would be classified as pre-diabetic."

"Routinely sleeping less than six or seven hours a night demolishes your immune system, more than doubling your risk of cancer."

!!! Up to 7 hours after your last coffee a day, you will not be able to fall asleep or sleep will be miserable. (Black and green also contains Caffeine).
(Being a volunteer I saw so many teenage skaters (even being 13 years old) drink coffee daily. Do they really drink their last coffee in 14-15 o'clock to secure good quality sleep?)

!!! To sum up: Not good quality sleep slows down your brain activity, physical activity (speed - so important for dynamic take-off in jumps), makes worse your immune system. Overall you will be more tired (even without you mentioning it).

I also suppose that your coordination will be worse.

Also one mention from the book...night is ideal for the good quality sleep. During other parts of the day, quality of sleep will never be that good.
---------------

Well, how many skaters indeed sleep 8 hours a day? Having regular sleeping regime? Having good quality sleep to wake up feeling recharged and fresh?

 

[sisinka]

The first preliminary idea is definitely interesting - but also I think we have to take into account that there is a higher scrutiny on figure skaters around the Olympic season, it being one of the most high profile Winter Olympics sport. So high profile absences from important competitions during that period invites bigger attention and curiosity, and that's when the stress fracture is usually disclosed.

Yes, it can be influenced by this.

Thanks for starting this thread! I think the data you collected may end up incomplete and/or too flawed to make a proper scientific conclusion, but this is probably the first time someone tried to lay out all the data based on confirmed information and timeline, which I appreciate.

Thank you!

And once again, you are right.
It would need support of some part of ISU (probably Medical Commission or Athletes Commission) and / or some Skating Federations. They would need to support and recommend the athletes to answer a questionnaire which I would need to create.

There would be also GDPR question, with personal questionnaire skaters would need to agree with their medical informations to be taken into research - using their names publicly or anonymously, it would depend on everybody's decision.

Picking "healthy" athletes for another questionnaire. Athletes injury free for at least few months (without acute injuries of muscles, ligaments, without any inflammation), without stress fracture's history in past few years. Without another diseases which could influence the incidence of injuries.

This action would be more coordinated and would definitely help to find out criterias leading to stress fractures, so creating guideline would come faster and with more ease.

Overall this approach would lead to general guidelines.

Visibly I am not the only one with idea of comparison - I read @dorispulaski and @Mathematician had the same idea.

Using Internet sources is definitely not precise as personal questionnaire, but it is better than nothing. At the moment I don't have better sources. But even with this approach I can clearly see some things which influence stress fracture's incidence.

 

[sisinka]

Once again big thanks to @figureskatingandrainbows , @surimi and @CrazyKittenLady for great summary of athlete's injuries.
Also thanks to @skatingfan4ever for mentioning Andrew Torgashev.

If somebody knows anyone who could give detail report about pre-injury + during injury + following injury period of time of some athlete with stress fracture, it would be welcomed. Corrections in athlete's regime following injury so greatly described by @figureskatingandrainbows is very welcomed as well.

 

[dorispulaski]

Perhaps questionnaires might go through coaching schools, too? You could get data without skaters' names attached. After all, it cannot be to a coaching school's advantage to have injured skaters. They may however not be entirely forthcoming about what their regimens were. There might need to be an arrangement where the researcher would be unable to know which school provided which data?

This might not be workable...

 

[sisinka]

MEN STRESS FRACTURES - TOP 7 AT WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS from 2004 to 2024:

Table with men highlighted in time when they already had history of stress fracture.
https://files.fm/u/7fbfw4bfcy (document)
https://files.fm/u/sdge7cmbyx (jpg)

- Evgeni Plushenko (RUS)
- Brian Joubert (FRA)
- Stefan Lindemann (GER)
- Stephane Lambiel (SUI)
- Johnny Weir (USA) - ...he was off the ice that year (2002) from May to the end of September with a stress fracture in his shin (https://www.goldenskate.com/forum/threads/disaster-for-johnny-weir.10871/page-3 )
- Michael Weiss (USA) - ...Weiss, 23, bothered by a stress fracture in his ankle throughout the fall 1999, hadn't competed seriously since November, (https://www.washingtonpost.com/arch...a-first/c07104a6-2583-4945-9122-124c1ef204d5/ )
...Last year, Weiss developed another stress fracture, this one in a toe on his left foot, and finished fourth at the U.S. championships
(https://www.washingtonpost.com/arch...lympics/50bd2c82-46bc-4fa0-8c9f-23242b28f23b/ )
- Min Zhang (CHN)
- Jeffrey Buttle (CAN) - ...In August of 2006, Jeffery Buttle suffered a stress fracture in his back due to over training, and was off the ice entirely for two months. (https://www.goldenskate.com/buttle-bounces-back/ )
- Evan Lysacek (USA) - ...In March of 2004, he suffered a break in his left hip socket that eventually caused a stress fracture in the hip itself as it began healing incorrectly. (https://www.voanews.com/a/a-13-2005-12-08-voa56/301594.html )
...Lysacek saw everything come together in the last six weeks, despite problems with a stress fracture in his left foot. (article from Match 2009) (https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-mar-27-sp-skate-worlds27-story.html)
- Chengjiang Li (CHN)
- Emanuel Sandhu (CAN)
- Nobunari Oda (JPN)
- Daisuke Takahashi (JPN) - ...Except the story he published on his blog, on the 28th of November (2013)– „I was diagnosed with right shinbone bruise” (https://www.insideskating.net/2013/...se-healing-process-and-long-term-consequences)
- Tomas Verner (CZE)
- Kevin Van der Perren (BEL)
- Sergei Voronov (RUS) - ...I had a stress fracture at last years Worlds (2012) (interview from December 2012)
(https://www.goldenskate.com/plushenko-wins-tenth-title-at-russian-nationals/ )
- Patrick Chan (CAN)
- Samuel Contesti (ITA)
- Takahiko Kozuka (JPN)
- Michal Brezina (CZE)
- Jeremy Abbott (USA)
- Adam Rippon (USA) - ...He went on to speculate that he may have suffered a stress fracture before breaking his foot in 2017 due to "not getting enough nutrients... (https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc...s-highlight-hidden-struggle-among-gay-n847976 )
- Artur Gachinski (RUS)
- Florent Amodio (FRA)
- Kevin Reynolds (CAN)
- Max Aaron (USA)
- Javier Fernandez (ESP)
- Yuzuru Hanyu (JPN)
- Denis Ten (KAZ)
- Tatsuki Machida (JPN)
- Maxim Kovtun (RUS)
- Han Yan (CHN)
- Nam Nguyen (CAN)
- Jason Brown (USA) - ...was diagnosed with a stress fracture in his right fibula on Dec. 16, (2016) (https://www.nbcsports.com/olympics/news/jason-brown-figure-skating-nationals-championships )
- Misha Ge (UZB)
- Boyang Jin (CHN)
- Mikhail Kolyada (RUS)
- Shoma Uno (JPN) - ...Last summer (2011), I was dealing with a stress fracture on my right ankle so I wasn’t able to train at 100% (https://shoma-uno.tumblr.com/post/104502672247/shomas-interview-from-cutting-edge-2013 )
- Nathan Chen (USA) - ...heel injury since last summer (2014)...the growth plate in my left heel hasn't been able to fuse completely...kind of like a stress fracture (https://www.goldenskate.com/nathan-chen/ )
- Alexei Bychenko (ISR)
- Kazuki Tomono (JPN)
- Deniss Vasiljevs (LAT)
- Dmitri Aliev (RUS)
- Vincent Zhou (USA) - ...began landing triples at age 9 last summer and has landed double axels, triple Salchows and triple toe loops in competition — all despite missing three months of ice time with a stress fracture in his right foot. (https://www.mercurynews.com/2011/01/28/for-10-year-old-rising-star-vincent-zhou-the-ice-is-right/ )
- Matteo Rizzo (ITA)
- Yuma Kagiyama (JPN) - ...Yuma's stress fracture in the 2022-23 season ... was caused by over-training, as diagnosed by medical professionals. He noticed pain during a summer ice show (2022), but continued to skate through it to finish out the show before seeing a doctor. He went back to training before it was fully healed in an attempt to qualify for a home Worlds (2023)
(https://www.goldenskate.com/forum/threads/stress-fractures-in-figure-skating.98339/page-2 )
...He mentioned that the stress fracture has almost healed, (https://fs-gossips.com/yuma-kagiyama-restored-his-quadruple-flip-after-a-left-ankle-injury/ )
...Update: Yuma Kagiyama has successfully landed a 4F in practice. The stress fracture is said to be almost completely healed.
“I can put more load on my left ankle. I am improving little by little.” (June 2023)
(https://x.com/skatejapanews/status/1669245909278793729 )
- Morisi Kvitelashvili (GEO)
- Camden Pulkinen (USA)
- Daniel Grassl (ITA)
- Junhwan Cha (KOR)
- Ilia Malinin (USA) - ...Malinin clarified that it was a stress fracture in his back that forced him out of nationals (and subsequently the Youth Olympics in 2020); he missed 2021 nationals due to an ankle injury.] (https://olympics.com/en/news/ilia-malinin-feature-figure-skating-worlds-montpellier-2022 )
...He was wearing big orthosis already in Finland (Grand Prix in November 2022) and told that in reality he shouldnt skate at least more 2 weeks because of stress facture... (https://www.goldenskate.com/forum/threads/ilia-malinin.89150/page-11 )
...He won his second Grand Prix title (autumn 2022) despite an overuse injury to his left foot and removing all Lutzes from his programs. (https://usfigureskatingfanzone.com/...d-his-quad-axel-head-to-grand-prix-final.aspx )
- Kevin Aymoz (FRA)
- Adam Siao Him Fa (FRA)
- Lukas Britschgi (SUI)


54 men - 13 with publicly known history of stress fracture / fractures - 24,07 %.

Once again the tendency to fracture rather in Olympic season or post-Olympic season. But as @rabidline wrote, it can be misleading.

 

[skatingfan4ever]

Andrew Torgashev has been a guest on Polina Edmunds' podcast three times so far. All his episodes mention injuries (the second one especially).

1. In his first episode (dated March 2, 2021) he talked for a few minutes about his Summer 2015 ankle injury and recovery process. Timestamp: 5:00 to 9:05

The Iron Butterfly: Andrew Torgashev

I chat with 2015 Junior National Champion Andrew Torgashev about his skating career thus far, consistency and mental training, training in Colorado Springs and now Los Angeles, and his future plans with skating! See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at...

bleav.com

2. His next episode (dated December 14, 2021) was a conversation all about his (and Polina's) injuries, coping, recovery, etc. Every minute except the ads is worth listening to. I cannot recommend this episode highly enough, given the topic of this thread.

The Iron Butterfly: Injury Updates & Reflections (ft. Andrew Torgashev)

I chat with 2015 Junior Champion Andrew Torgashev about his current recovery process with his latest injury. We talk lessons learned form injury, the importance of patience, injury prevention, mentality through multiple injuries, learning about yourself away from the ice, and load management.

bleav.com

3. His third episode (dated June 27, 2023) came after an injury-free season where he unexpectedly finished 3rd at Nationals and made the World Team. A couple tidbits seem particularly relevant in this thread.

- The biggest thing that helped him stay injury-free that season was "not letting your wants and goals get in front of your needs. staying super honest to yourself and to what's going on, and to progress properly instead of getting ahead of yourself." Timestamp: 3:00 to 7:40

- He needed to take so much time off the ice (a full two seasons) that when he finally returned to the ice he was starting from zero and built himself back up to compete again. Leading up to 2023 Nationals, his mindset was to "be better 1% each day." He specifically mentions that spins have to be better, steps have to better, landing positions have to be better, fingers have to be finished, nice lines in shoulders. "It's all of these small details that we take for granted because we might've worked on them so much when we were younger that it's just natural. But when that goes away (and it goes away quick) it's very hard to get back." And then, as an afterthought, he adds, "And of course technical things as well." Timestamp: 19:00

The Iron Butterfly: The Comeback Kid ft. Andrew Torgashev

bleav.com

Sorry for the long post, but the podcast episodes provide more depth and context than the one short article I shared before. Enjoy!

 

[sisinka]

I had to correct Yuma's stress fracture's history in top7 men post as I didn't mentioned it previously.

I would like to ask @figureskatingandrainbows about this:
Yuma mentioned that the stress fracture has almost healed, (https://fs-gossips.com/yuma-kagiyama-restored-his-quadruple-flip-after-a-left-ankle-injury/ )
Update: Yuma Kagiyama has successfully landed a 4F in practice. The stress fracture is said to be almost completely healed.
“I can put more load on my left ankle. I am improving little by little.” (June 2023)
(https://x.com/skatejapanews/status/1669245909278793729 )

I want to ask if you know something more about it. It was June 2023 and I am not sure if translation from Japanese is correct.
It could be:
1) bone is almost healed = not fully healed, so he shouldn't be on the ice and the length of healing would go to one 1 year...
2) injury is almost healed - in meening that it still pains in certain moments, after practise...but fracture itself is completely healed.

 

[sisinka]

I would like to ask @surimi :

...
- you can get your foot re-fractured doing less than triples: this post from Sota's fanfest refers to Daichi Miyata, I believe, and says Daichi's second fracture happened when he was jumping a 2Lo.

This mean that :
1) Daichi is training triple jumps or triple and quad jumps? But the last jump before the pain accelarated and examination revealed stress fracture was double loop?
OR
2) they meant that Daichi was training double jumps only?
I think the first one is right, right?

-----
And one thing which I have to explain:

...
- he says his right leg is a bit bow-legged, and photos confirm that. I am not sure if it was the case before the injury, but it's likely, so we can possibly tick off the 'abnormalities' box. I'm afraid that in your distinction of '1) too big load on normal bone / 2) normal load on abnormal bone ', we could be looking at a mixed category - 'abnormal load on abnormal bone' in Sota's case -_-

Abnormal bone points to bone with pathology in for example bone metabolism - it can lead to low bone density = osteoporosis, or genetic pathology, cysts in bone.

There are diseases with long term cortikosteroid treatment. One of side effects of cortikosteroids is osteoporosis.

Bow leg / legs as well as flat feet / high arches are deformities which are not connected necessarily to bone pathology.
But yes, it leads to troubles. There are certain things which automatically happens with these type of "curves" or foot type - certain muscle imbalances, certain fascia's changes, more pressure on certain bones - it is different for bow legs = varus knees, different for valgus knees.

But it is true that for example flat foot means higher risk of stress fracture.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1013702513000493
FLAT FOOT AND ASSOCIATED FACTORS AMONG PRIMARY SCHOOL CHILDREN: A cross-sectional study
- study from 2014 comparing different studies about flat foot
- "People with flat foot are at higher risk of foot pain, knee pain, foot injury, stress fracture, and poor exercise performance.
- An Israeli study, for instance, showed that lower foot arches appeared to increase the risk of ankle sprains."

Overall flat foot, varus and valgus knees are leading to sooner start of osteoarthritis of all lower extremity joints.

So it does have sense to make Rehab to correct body's position varus or valgus or flat feet including... in range which is possible.

With varus knees - inner side of lower extremities will be shorter - physiotherapist needs to release fascias on inner side of lower extremities. But attention - fascia must be realeased, not work on muscles only. If you release fascia, muscles connected to fascia usually follow and release as well. But when you release muscles only, fascia will probably stay shortened.
This approach helps to get smaller varus knee position. In case of children it can completely delete varus position if it is just postural dysfunction (which it usually is).

 

[sisinka]

Question for @CrazyKittenLady .

...there was the domestic Junior Cup final. On the morning after the SP, Alexey said his foot hurt so much ...Another MRI revealed a recurrence of the previous injury. This time, according to an interview from May 2019 he stayed off the ice for one and a half months, ...For the first week back on the ice he only practised gliding, then he began jumping. After a few days, the pain in his right foot flared up again and it turned out that the fracture wasn't properly healed after all and he had to discontinue on-ice training once more.
...

Usually doctor invites an athlete after the break for control - X-ray or MRI (better in case of stress fracture) is done. If stress fracture is healed than an athlete is allowed to come back to training. Not healed - the break continues until next check-up, healing process is prolonged.

In this case Alexey:
1) didn't have check-up with MRI to confirm whether fracture is healed. He simply came back on the ice after break and after few days with pain getting worse they made MRI and found out that fracture was not healed.
OR
2) had MRI with healed fracture. He came back on the ice. After few days pain started - MRI confirmed stress fracture - so it was another re-fracture.

It is not really possible to have healed fracture based on MRI and after few days with new MRI to change the diagnosis into not healed fracture. The only chance would be that doctors would again control previous MRI and found out that there still was not healed fracture, which was overlooked when first described (may happen if less experienced doctor makes description and bone bruise or fracture is miniature).

Do you know something more about this, please? Does any article mentions more details?

 

[figureskatingandrainbows]

I had to correct Yama's stress fracture's history in top7 men post as I didn't mentioned it previously.

I would like to ask @figureskatingandrainbows about this:
Yuma mentioned that the stress fracture has almost healed, (https://fs-gossips.com/yuma-kagiyama-restored-his-quadruple-flip-after-a-left-ankle-injury/ )
Update: Yuma Kagiyama has successfully landed a 4F in practice. The stress fracture is said to be almost completely healed.
“I can put more load on my left ankle. I am improving little by little.” (June 2023)
(https://x.com/skatejapanews/status/1669245909278793729 )

I want to ask if you know something more about it. It was June 2023 and I am not sure if translation from Japanese is correct.
It could be:
1) bone is almost healed = not fully healed, so he shouldn't be on the ice and the length of healing would go to one 1 year...
2) injury is almost healed - in meening that it still pains in certain moments, after practise...but fracture itself is completely healed.

I think it was a case of stress fractures taking a while to heal, and it was at the point where it was almost fully gone, so he was given the green light to skate, but it wasn't 100% perfectly healed yet but it was well on its way to getting better and skating wasn't going to aggravate it any more. I think the comments were more directed towards him skating lightly in practice to avoid re-aggravating the fracture after it had just healed. So I'd go more with the latter option.

I was a little shocked to see the number of injuries Ilia has had - I know he was taken out for a while during the 2020-21 season with injury but that's a lot for such a young kid, not to mention his unknown issues he had during Worlds. I really hope that he can stay healthy and avoid any more injuries, because that is a lot to deal with. Poor guy.

 

[sisinka]

LIST OF SINGLE MEN WITH STRESS FRACTURE HISTORY:
(alphabetic order)

- Christopher Bowman - ...What Bowman had was a stress fracture of his fibula ...Bowman ignored the pain and went to the nationals this year, hoping for a spot on the team going to the world championships.
After the short program in the nationals (1986), he was second and in pain. It was then that skating officials approached Carroll and said, “We can barely stand to watch.” Carroll pulled Bowman out of the competition. Neither knew at the time that Bowman had been skating on a broken leg. (https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1986-07-27-sp-1703-story.html )

- Jordan Brauninger - ...I just read that Jordan Brauninger has a hairline fracture in his fibula. (https://www.goldenskate.com/forum/threads/mens-injury-status.7880/#post-98497 )

- Jason Brown - "...was diagnosed with a stress fracture in his right fibula on Dec. 16,..." (2016) (https://www.nbcsports.com/olympics/news/jason-brown-figure-skating-nationals-championships )

- Kurt Browning - "...At Skate America (1985), Kurt injured his back during the freeskate. It wasn't until after Canadians that he had xrays which revealed a hairline fracture in the 4th lumbar ... requiring Kurt to stay off the ice for 2 months..." (https://www.kurtfiles.com/memorylane/m1985.htm )

- Jeffrey Buttle - "...In August of 2006, Jeffrey Buttle suffered a stress fracture in his back due to over training, and was off the ice entirely for two months..." (https://www.goldenskate.com/buttle-bounces-back/ )

- Nathan Chen - "...heel injury since last summer (2014)...the growth plate in my left heel hasn't been able to fuse completely...kind of like a stress fracture..." (https://www.goldenskate.com/nathan-chen/ )

- Ryan Dunk - "...In December 2019 while preparing for his first senior national competition, Dunk’s ankles had swollen due to bursitis from over-training. Since he was training so much, Dunk explained that his boot would wear down, not providing enough support during jumps and tricks...Once the season ended for him in January, Dunk underwent two procedures and the doctor found bone bruises..." (https://thesuffolkjournal.com/38022...olk-senior-reflects-on-figure-skating-career/ )

- Todd Eldredge - "...20 (born in 1991), hasn`t been at full strength the entire season. His foot hurt while finishing second at Skate America in September, and the cause was found to be a stress fracture. After three weeks off to let that heal, he punctured the same foot with the blade of the other skate. That required 2 1/2 more weeks off the ice." (https://www.chicagotribune.com/1992/02/13/frustration-pain-dog-us-skater/ )

- Alexey Erokhov - "...stress fracture in his right foot - his landing foot... it must have happened around October 2018 - foot was broken in three different places....Junior Cup final 2019 - On the morning after the SP - another MRI revealed a recurrence of the previous injury. ...After a few days (of returning to practise), the pain in his right foot flared up again and it turned out that the fracture wasn't properly healed after all and he had to discontinue on-ice training once more (April 2019?)..." (https://www.goldenskate.com/forum/t...s-in-figure-skating.98339/page-3#post-3286073 )

- Tomoki Hiwatashi - "..."I had a major injury in my back during nationals(season 2022-23). It was a stress reaction," Hiwatashi recalled." (https://featured.japan-forward.com/...an-to-train-with-mie-hamada-paying-dividends/ )

- Yuma Kagiyama - "...Yuma's stress fracture in the 2022-23 season ... was caused by over-training, as diagnosed by medical professionals. He noticed pain during a summer ice show (2022), but continued to skate through it to finish out the show before seeing a doctor. He went back to training before it was fully healed in an attempt to qualify for a home Worlds (2023)..."
(https://www.goldenskate.com/forum/threads/stress-fractures-in-figure-skating.98339/page-2 )
..."He mentioned that the stress fracture has almost healed,..." (https://fs-gossips.com/yuma-kagiyama-restored-his-quadruple-flip-after-a-left-ankle-injury/ )
..."Update: Yuma Kagiyama has successfully landed a 4F in practice. The stress fracture is said to be almost completely healed.
“I can put more load on my left ankle. I am improving little by little.” (June 2023)
(https://x.com/skatejapanews/status/1669245909278793729 )

- Brendan Kerry - "..."It was hard starting the season (2015-16) with a stress fracture, which meant I had to pull out of a warm-up comp at Salt Lake City last month. ....had recently sustained a bony stress injury to the second metatarsal in his left foot." (https://www.owia.org/individual-athletes-news/archives/10-2015 )

- Artem Kovalev - "...got a tibial stress fracture." (July 2013) (https://www.goldenskate.com/forum/threads/2023-24-russian-mens-figure-skating.95795/ )

- Vladimir Litvintsev - "...I skated for eight months with an injury. Question: Injury – fibula stress fracture? Vladimir: Yes, exactly... In China (Olympics 2022), it was almost not painful anymore. I had a very moderate load, so I was able to perform well. I was taking a lot of painkillers." (season 2021-22) (https://fs-gossips.com/8738/ )

- Evan Lysacek - "...In March of 2004, he suffered a break in his left hip socket that eventually caused a stress fracture in the hip itself as it began healing incorrectly." (https://www.voanews.com/a/a-13-2005-12-08-voa56/301594.html )
..."he had a bruise on the outer side of his hip, some swelling and discoloration…very tender, really tender,” Zabiliski said. “Usually with an injury like this the maximum amount of swelling will occur after 24 hours. Sometimes it takes about 24 hours to really know how severe it is - how much bleeding occurs [and] how much swelling occurs.” (December 2006) (https://web.archive.org/web/20070115205008/http://www.usfigureskating.org/event_story.asp?id=37002 )
..."Lysacek saw everything come together in the last six weeks, despite problems with a stress fracture in his left foot." (article from March 2009) (https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-mar-27-sp-skate-worlds27-story.html)

- Alexander Majorov - "...Last fall (2007) Sasha went to Golden Spin. His back was still bothering him … But something happened in practice and he couldn't move at all ...he went to Stockholm to have an MRI scan. There they found an old stress fracture in his back and a new one starting a bit further down..." (https://absoluteskating.com/index.php?cat=articles&id=2008sashamajorov )
..."He withdrew from the Swedish Championships to recover after an operation to extract bone marrow for his father (season 2015-16)...His withdrawal from the 2016 World Championships in Boston followed the detection of a precursor to a stress fracture of the pelvis." (it could be due to extract bone marrow - bone bruise can be one of rare complications) (Wikipedia)

- Ilia Malinin - "...Malinin clarified that it was a stress fracture in his back that forced him out of nationals (and subsequently the Youth Olympics in 2020); he missed 2021 nationals due to an ankle injury.]" (https://olympics.com/en/news/ilia-malinin-feature-figure-skating-worlds-montpellier-2022 )
..."He was wearing big orthosis already in Finland (Grand Prix in November 2022) and told that in reality he shouldnt skate at least more 2 weeks because of stress facture..." (https://www.goldenskate.com/forum/threads/ilia-malinin.89150/page-11 )
..."He won his second Grand Prix title (autumn 2022) despite an overuse injury to his left foot and removing all Lutzes from his programs." (https://usfigureskatingfanzone.com/...d-his-quad-axel-head-to-grand-prix-final.aspx )

- Daniel Martynov - "...The Grand Prix Final arrives as a sort of reward to Martynov after an especially challenging couple of years, which has seen him suffer through a myriad of injuries, including tendonitis in his knee, a stress fracture in his back and a growth spurt that saw him grow nine inches over a matter of months in 2021." (https://olympics.com/en/news/son-in...rting-own-path-yevgeny-nikolai-morozov-junior )

- Daichi Miyata - "...stress fracture and re-fracture..." (https://www.goldenskate.com/forum/t...s-in-figure-skating.98339/page-2#post-3286055 )

- Maxim Naumov - "...My first serious injury was five or six years ago (2017 or 2018). I’ve always had issues with my ankle. I have never had such a fracture. My bone broke, and part of it began to rub against the tendon. The first surgery was to remove part of the bone. The second was to remove other pieces, then the third was in the same place to close the hole they made to find the pieces of this bone, and the fourth was to heal the scars on the muscle tissue. All this was on the ankle." (https://fs-gossips.com/9891/ )

NEW - Anthony Paradis - bilateral stress fracture of lower back - happened in spring 2026
(https://www.goldenskate.com/forum/threads/anthony-paradis-injury.103544/ )

- Adam Rippon - "...He went on to speculate that he may have suffered a stress fracture before breaking his foot in 2017 due to "not getting enough nutrients..." (https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc...s-highlight-hidden-struggle-among-gay-n847976 )
..."A wake-up call finally came last year, when he broke his foot during a warm-up exercise. “I think I had a stress fracture before I broke my foot,”... (https://www.today.com/health/olympian-adam-rippon-extreme-diet-pressure-figure-skating-t123168 )

- Roman Sadovsky - "...was primed for the Canadian championships last year, but just before the event, he felt a bit of pain in his right foot. He told Wainman that he couldn’t do the flip and the Lutz, because it hurt to tap in for take-off from the right foot. “He’s quite tough,” Wainman said. “He was still landing the jumps.” (article from August 2013) Concerned about the pain, Wainman sent him for tests. On the day that the MRI test results came, Sadovsky had landed a triple-triple combo and a triple flip – even though he’d been suffering from a stress fracture on a growth plate near his toe." (https://skatecanada.ca/2013/08/roma...sults-on-the-isu-junior-grand-prix-circuit-2/)

- Evgeni Semenenko - "...I had a stress fracture in my tibia...that happened during a growth period..." (14 years old) (https://www.goldenskate.com/evgeni-semenenko/ )

- Elvis Stojko - "...an injury to his left foot, later diagnosed as a fractured bone, which had prevented him from practising some of his triple jumps for almost a month (February 1992)..." (https://www.kurtfiles.com/articles/article.php?cat=SOI&id=35 )

- Daisuke Takahashi - "...Except the story he published on his blog, on the 28th of November (2013)– „I was diagnosed with right shinbone bruise” (https://www.insideskating.net/2013/...se-healing-process-and-long-term-consequences)

- Andrew Torgashev - "...he went to a doctor, who diagnosed him with a stress fracture in the metatarsals. That fall, he was off the ice for six weeks and in a boot for another four, at which point he missed the 2020-21 season." (https://usfigureskatingfanzone.com/...-skate-america-with-an-eye-on-the-future.aspx )

- Shoma Uno - "...Last summer (2011), I was dealing with a stress fracture on my right ankle so I wasn’t able to train at 100%..." (https://shoma-uno.tumblr.com/post/104502672247/shomas-interview-from-cutting-edge-2013 )

- Sergei Voronov - "...I had a stress fracture at last years Worlds (2012)..." (interview from December 2012)
(https://www.goldenskate.com/plushenko-wins-tenth-title-at-russian-nationals/ )

- Johnny Weir - "...he was off the ice that year (2002) from May to the end of September with a stress fracture in his shin..." (https://www.goldenskate.com/forum/threads/disaster-for-johnny-weir.10871/page-3 )

- Michael Weiss - "...Weiss, 23, bothered by a stress fracture in his ankle throughout the fall 1999, hadn't competed seriously since November,..." (https://www.washingtonpost.com/arch...a-first/c07104a6-2583-4945-9122-124c1ef204d5/ )
..."Last year, Weiss developed another stress fracture, this one in a toe on his left foot, and finished fourth at the U.S. championships..."
(https://www.washingtonpost.com/arch...lympics/50bd2c82-46bc-4fa0-8c9f-23242b28f23b/ )
..."He missed sectionals in the fall of 1995 due to a stress fracture in his heel,..." (https://www.goldenskate.com/forum/threads/tim-goebel-leaving-frank-carroll.7212/#post-91402 )

- Sota Yamamoto - "...stress fracture of right ankle in March 2016, for the second time in July 2016, for the third time in September / October 2016..." (https://www.goldenskate.com/forum/t...s-in-figure-skating.98339/page-2#post-3286055 )

- Vincent Zhou - "...began landing triples at age 9 last summer and has landed double axels, triple Salchows and triple toe loops in competition — all despite missing three months of ice time with a stress fracture in his right foot." (https://www.mercurynews.com/2011/01/28/for-10-year-old-rising-star-vincent-zhou-the-ice-is-right/ )


SINGLE LADIES

 

[Mathematician]

LIST OF SINGLE MEN WITH STRESS FRACTURE HISTORY:
(alphabetic order)

- Christopher Bowman - ...What Bowman had was a stress fracture of his fibula ...Bowman ignored the pain and went to the nationals this year, hoping for a spot on the team going to the world championships.
After the short program in the nationals (1986), he was second and in pain. It was then that skating officials approached Carroll and said, “We can barely stand to watch.” Carroll pulled Bowman out of the competition. Neither knew at the time that Bowman had been skating on a broken leg. (https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1986-07-27-sp-1703-story.html )

- Jordan Brauninger - ...I just read that Jordan Brauninger has a hairline fracture in his fibula. (https://www.goldenskate.com/forum/threads/mens-injury-status.7880/#post-98497 )

- Jason Brown - ...was diagnosed with a stress fracture in his right fibula on Dec. 16, (2016) (https://www.nbcsports.com/olympics/news/jason-brown-figure-skating-nationals-championships )

- Jeffrey Buttle - ...In August of 2006, Jeffrey Buttle suffered a stress fracture in his back due to over training, and was off the ice entirely for two months.... (https://www.goldenskate.com/buttle-bounces-back/ )

- Nathan Chen - ...heel injury since last summer (2014)...the growth plate in my left heel hasn't been able to fuse completely...kind of like a stress fracture (https://www.goldenskate.com/nathan-chen/ )

- Todd Eldredge - ...20 (born in 1991), hasn`t been at full strength the entire season. His foot hurt while finishing second at Skate America in September, and the cause was found to be a stress fracture. After three weeks off to let that heal, he punctured the same foot with the blade of the other skate. That required 2 1/2 more weeks off the ice. (https://www.chicagotribune.com/1992/02/13/frustration-pain-dog-us-skater/ )

- Alexey Erokhov - ...stress fracture in his right foot - his landing foot... it must have happened around October 2018 - foot was broken in three different places....Junior Cup final 2019 - On the morning after the SP - another MRI revealed a recurrence of the previous injury. ...After a few days (of returning to practise), the pain in his right foot flared up again and it turned out that the fracture wasn't properly healed after all and he had to discontinue on-ice training once more (April 2019?) (https://www.goldenskate.com/forum/t...s-in-figure-skating.98339/page-3#post-3286073 )

- Yuma Kagiyama - ...Yuma's stress fracture in the 2022-23 season ... was caused by over-training, as diagnosed by medical professionals. He noticed pain during a summer ice show (2022), but continued to skate through it to finish out the show before seeing a doctor. He went back to training before it was fully healed in an attempt to qualify for a home Worlds (2023)
(https://www.goldenskate.com/forum/threads/stress-fractures-in-figure-skating.98339/page-2 )
...He mentioned that the stress fracture has almost healed, (https://fs-gossips.com/yuma-kagiyama-restored-his-quadruple-flip-after-a-left-ankle-injury/ )
...Update: Yuma Kagiyama has successfully landed a 4F in practice. The stress fracture is said to be almost completely healed.
“I can put more load on my left ankle. I am improving little by little.” (June 2023)
(https://x.com/skatejapanews/status/1669245909278793729 )

- Brendan Kerry - ..."It was hard starting the season (2015-16) with a stress fracture, which meant I had to pull out of a warm-up comp at Salt Lake City last month. ....had recently sustained a bony stress injury to the second metatarsal in his left foot. (https://www.owia.org/individual-athletes-news/archives/10-2015 )

- Artem Kovalev - ...got a tibial stress fracture. (July 2013) (https://www.goldenskate.com/forum/threads/2023-24-russian-mens-figure-skating.95795/ )

- Evan Lysacek - ...In March of 2004, he suffered a break in his left hip socket that eventually caused a stress fracture in the hip itself as it began healing incorrectly. (https://www.voanews.com/a/a-13-2005-12-08-voa56/301594.html )
...he had a bruise on the outer side of his hip, some swelling and discoloration…very tender, really tender,” Zabiliski said. “Usually with an injury like this the maximum amount of swelling will occur after 24 hours. Sometimes it takes about 24 hours to really know how severe it is - how much bleeding occurs [and] how much swelling occurs.” (December 2006) (https://web.archive.org/web/20070115205008/http://www.usfigureskating.org/event_story.asp?id=37002 )
...Lysacek saw everything come together in the last six weeks, despite problems with a stress fracture in his left foot. (article from Match 2009) (https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-mar-27-sp-skate-worlds27-story.html)

- Ilia Malinin - ...Malinin clarified that it was a stress fracture in his back that forced him out of nationals (and subsequently the Youth Olympics in 2020); he missed 2021 nationals due to an ankle injury.] (https://olympics.com/en/news/ilia-malinin-feature-figure-skating-worlds-montpellier-2022 )
...He was wearing big orthosis already in Finland (Grand Prix in November 2022) and told that in reality he shouldnt skate at least more 2 weeks because of stress facture... (https://www.goldenskate.com/forum/threads/ilia-malinin.89150/page-11 )
...He won his second Grand Prix title (autumn 2022) despite an overuse injury to his left foot and removing all Lutzes from his programs. (https://usfigureskatingfanzone.com/...d-his-quad-axel-head-to-grand-prix-final.aspx )

- Daniel Martynov - ...The Grand Prix Final arrives as a sort of reward to Martynov after an especially challenging couple of years, which has seen him suffer through a myriad of injuries, including tendonitis in his knee, a stress fracture in his back and a growth spurt that saw him grow nine inches over a matter of months in 2021. (https://olympics.com/en/news/son-in...rting-own-path-yevgeny-nikolai-morozov-junior )

- Daichi Miyata - ...stress fracture and re-fracture (https://www.goldenskate.com/forum/t...s-in-figure-skating.98339/page-2#post-3286055 )

- Adam Rippon - ...He went on to speculate that he may have suffered a stress fracture before breaking his foot in 2017 due to "not getting enough nutrients... (https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc...s-highlight-hidden-struggle-among-gay-n847976 )
...A wake-up call finally came last year, when he broke his foot during a warm-up exercise. “I think I had a stress fracture before I broke my foot,”... (https://www.today.com/health/olympian-adam-rippon-extreme-diet-pressure-figure-skating-t123168 )

- Roman Sadovsky - ...was primed for the Canadian championships last year, but just before the event, he felt a bit of pain in his right foot. He told Wainman that he couldn’t do the flip and the Lutz, because it hurt to tap in for take-off from the right foot. “He’s quite tough,” Wainman said. “He was still landing the jumps.” (article from August 2013) Concerned about the pain, Wainman sent him for tests. On the day that the MRI test results came, Sadovsky had landed a triple-triple combo and a triple flip – even though he’d been suffering from a stress fracture on a growth plate near his toe. (https://skatecanada.ca/2013/08/roma...sults-on-the-isu-junior-grand-prix-circuit-2/)

- Evgeni Semenenko - ...I had a stress fracture in my tibia...that happened during a growth period (14 years old) (https://www.goldenskate.com/evgeni-semenenko/ )

- Daisuke Takahashi - ...Except the story he published on his blog, on the 28th of November (2013)– „I was diagnosed with right shinbone bruise” (https://www.insideskating.net/2013/...se-healing-process-and-long-term-consequences)

- Andrew Torgashev - ...he went to a doctor, who diagnosed him with a stress fracture in the metatarsals. That fall, he was off the ice for six weeks and in a boot for another four, at which point he missed the 2020-21 season. (https://usfigureskatingfanzone.com/...-skate-america-with-an-eye-on-the-future.aspx )

- Shoma Uno - ...Last summer (2011), I was dealing with a stress fracture on my right ankle so I wasn’t able to train at 100% (https://shoma-uno.tumblr.com/post/104502672247/shomas-interview-from-cutting-edge-2013 )

- Sergei Voronov - ...I had a stress fracture at last years Worlds (2012) (interview from December 2012)
(https://www.goldenskate.com/plushenko-wins-tenth-title-at-russian-nationals/ )

- Johnny Weir - ...he was off the ice that year (2002) from May to the end of September with a stress fracture in his shin (https://www.goldenskate.com/forum/threads/disaster-for-johnny-weir.10871/page-3 )

- Michael Weiss - ...Weiss, 23, bothered by a stress fracture in his ankle throughout the fall 1999, hadn't competed seriously since November, (https://www.washingtonpost.com/arch...a-first/c07104a6-2583-4945-9122-124c1ef204d5/ )
...Last year, Weiss developed another stress fracture, this one in a toe on his left foot, and finished fourth at the U.S. championships
(https://www.washingtonpost.com/arch...lympics/50bd2c82-46bc-4fa0-8c9f-23242b28f23b/ )

- Sota Yamamoto - ...stress fracture of right ankle in March 2016, for the second time in July 2016, for the third time in September / October 2016 (https://www.goldenskate.com/forum/t...s-in-figure-skating.98339/page-2#post-3286055 )

- Vincent Zhou - ...began landing triples at age 9 last summer and has landed double axels, triple Salchows and triple toe loops in competition — all despite missing three months of ice time with a stress fracture in his right foot. (https://www.mercurynews.com/2011/01/28/for-10-year-old-rising-star-vincent-zhou-the-ice-is-right/ )


SINGLE LADIES

Hm the stress fractures being so prevalent amongst guys as well makes me think nutrition isnt as big of a factor as I originally thought.

I really think then that the entire training philosophy requires full reconsideration.

 

[CrazyKittenLady]

It is not really possible to have healed fracture based on MRI and after few days with new MRI to change the diagnosis into not healed fracture. The only chance would be that doctors would again control previous MRI and found out that there still was not healed fracture, which was overlooked when first described (may happen if less experienced doctor makes description and bone bruise or fracture is miniature).

Do you know something more about this, please? Does any article mentions more details?

The info is from this interview:

Алексей Ерохов: «Сразу настроил себя, что просто так не сдамся»

Чемпион мира среди юниоров-2018 Алексей Ерохов в комментарии сайту ФФККР рассказал о том, что произошло после финала Кубка России, по какой причине не смог выступить на юниорском чемпионате мира в

www.fsrussia.ru

Relevant paragraph:
"After the Russian Cup final [end of February 2019], we returned to Moscow and went to the doctors, who said that I had a recurrence of my previous injury - a stress fracture in my foot. Because of this I was forbidden to skate, and it was clear that I couldn't go to Zagreb, to the Junior World Championships.
I didn't skate for a month and a half. I did only physical therapy and exercises in the gym. Everything was sort of healed. I went out on the ice [mid-April]. I skated for a week. I jumped for a couple of days. But I felt the pain again [end of April]. Had an MRI. It turned out the injury hadn't healed. I had to get further treatment.
Now [beginning of May 2019] I am allowed to do a little physical activity, but it is not advisable to jump until June. Just before the start of our training camp in Novogorsk. That's why I'm practising only sliding and doing exercises in the gym for the time being."

The line "Everything was sort of healed - Вроде все залечил" isn't quite clear to me. You'd have to ask a Russian native speaker for the proper translation in this context.

 

[surimi]

I would like to ask @surimi :



This mean that :
1) Daichi is training triple jumps or triple and quad jumps? But the last jump before the pain accelarated and examination revealed stress fracture was double loop?
OR
2) they meant that Daichi was training double jumps only?
I think the first one is right, right?

Sorry, I cannot be of help with this one. I was just guessing that that old post was referring to him, and the poster is no longer around. Daichi's career was super short, and he was really struggling at around that time (2016). He was in domestic competitions afterwards. I know he had a serious injury, perhaps career-ending, and I think it was a fracture - however, I cannot find any concrete injury info at the moment on GS or Wiki. He retired for good in 2018. Apart from that, I don't really know much about Daichi, I'm afraid. Perhaps one of our Japanese users would know...

 

[sisinka]

Hm the stress fractures being so prevalent amongst guys as well makes me think nutrition isnt as big of a factor as I originally thought.

I really think then that the entire training philosophy requires full reconsideration.

And not only training on and off the ice. I believe that whole approach is not complex and skater's life and career are not planned and controlled in a fully functional way.

While physical and mental demands had grown enormously - things which should COUNTERBALANCE both physical and mental demands stagnate.

This must lead to imbalance in injury's favour.

Unfortunately, I don't think these numbers will go lower. It's a widespread problem and seems to come with the joys of elite training...

So I have to agree with @4everchan, with today's physical and mental demands being put on figure skaters - without complex changes number of stress fractures will no way go lower. It will go higher...