Research on foot/ankle injuries vs footwear choice

Nick, you've posted more than once on this thread that physical fitness and conditioning can have a strong influence on susceptibility to injury. You suggest that your relative fitness has helped you avoid injury. I was offering a counter-argument, more in line with your comments about playing basketball and becoming injured. I think the overall point is level of fitness doesn't necessarily influence injury. You could argue that couch potatoes are more likely to injure themselves because they're out of shape. Or you could argue that athletes are more likely to injure themselves due to overuse and stresses. Reality is probably somewhere in the middle… if you're breathing and active, you might injure yourself.

One thing we can probably all agree on? A lighter pack will reduce your risk for injury.

From William, "(2) the use of a brace is effective for reducing the risk of reinjuring the ankle… " which pretty well supports the argument that wearing a more supportive boot or shoe will reduce your risk for injury.

Would a more supportive "boot" minimized my injury on the Arctic 1000?

Yes, I think so.

But you can't hike 30-40 mile days in boots day after day, which was required in order to complete this traverse, so the question is a little irrelevant in the context of this trip, which had a very specific objective: walk 600 miles without resupply. Wearing boots = decreasing mileage = heavier pack = not a style that interested me.

My injury was catastrophic – plunged through an ice shelf and rolled my ankle forward upon landing squarely on a rock. The impact rocked my whole system: ankle, knee, spine. The ankle took most of the abuse. A stiff boot would have transferred the force upward, and I shudder to think of the consquences of a knee / ACL / MCL injury, which would have been far more precarious than an ankle injury.

You can walk on ankle injuries. You can't walk on knee and back injuries.

For those of you that don't know the story, I was 5 days into a wilderness traverse carrying a 56 lb starting pack weight (7 lb gear, 49 lb food) when I had this "event". I walked another 85 miles to a gravel bar where a bush plane then picked me up. I got a lot of criticism for my shoe choice (Montrail Vitesse's).

I wouldn't have made any changes, and have no regrets.

I had reconstructive surgery (tendons and ligaments) a year later, rehabilitated my ankle for the next year, and have no ankle issues at all, and have been able to abuse it just fine since rehab, no brace, no high tops, no floppiness, no further injuries, and it's actually quite a bit stronger since surgery, than it was before the Arctic trek.

Also FWIW the Inov-8 paragliding boots are not boots in the traditional sense. They offer no additional ankle support that would provide enough resistance for minimizing ankle injuries. They're soft. The real benefit is for off trail hiking on talus/scree, and bushwhacking — they keep your feet on the footbed better when sidehilling and and are nice to protect your feet from ankle bruises on scree etc.

Ryan, it's good to have you join the conversation! Regarding your ankle injury, you've chosen an approach, style and philosophy to backpacking and stuck with it. You've hiked your hike, and I respect that.

One of the really wonderful things about BPL is its overall committment to a more "scientific," or at least more objective, approach to our world. Given my love of logical discussion and debate, and my propensity for playing devil's advocate, your comments stimulated some further thoughts…

I see myself in some of the same juxtapositions (dilemmas?)between my philosphies, beliefs and practices. I know I contradict myself at times… that's part of the beauty of being alive! And sometimes my philosophy doesn't quite jive with my practical experience or just plain ol' gut feeling.

So on one hand you say that you do think a more supportive "boot" (or otherwise more supportive footwear selection) could have prevented your injury. On the other hand, you follow that statement by saying that more supportive footwear probably would have ruined your knees/ACL/etc… that the more supportive footwear would likely have caused more damage–or perhaps just more severe damage. I think that, between the lines, your philosophy about life and backpacking says that the more supportive footwear could have worsened the injury, while your actual experience suggests that the more supportive footwear could have prevented the injury. I do believe that your injury could have even been prevented, without otherwise increasing your "proverbial" risk… irrelevant now, but for future reference…

Second point of interest: matter-of-fact statement that people flat-out, cannot walk 30+ miles per day (edit: in boots). I suspect that there are military guys all 'round who have done it. I know I've done 20 mile days in boots back before I lightened up. (Granted, not many of them… my pack was too heavy!) I think the reality is it's all a matter of perspective. Personal philosophy and approach, psychological "make-up," and so forth all feed in to what's possible and preferable for us all.

Just a few thoughts… Cheers-