Advice on Foot Care

Building and maintaining trails involves a lot of difficult, physical work. The most common injuries are lower back injuries and blunt trauma from using the trail building tools, but injuries to foot and ankle can occur.

Ankle Sprains: Walking on uneven, sloped terrain is common during trailbuilding and increases the chance for ankle sprains. An sprain is the partial or complete tear of a ligament. The most common ligaments torn while walking on sloped terrain are the ligaments on the outside of the ankle. To help prevent ankle sprains, wear high top rigid hiking boots. More on ankle sprains.

Tendonitis: When walking on steep terrain, the Achilles tendon can become overstressed. Those with tight calf muscles are prone to developing Achilles tendonitis. When doing trailwork, it is difficult to avoid steep hills and uneven terrain. For those with tight calf muscles, try to stretch your calf before and after the trail work, wear a heel lift in your boot and make sure your boot has a wedged heel. All of these techniques will decrease your chance of injury. More on Achilles Tendonitis.

Black Toenails: After hiking up a steep slope, you always have to hike down. When the trail or trail to be is steep, this causes the foot to slide forward and the toes to hit the front of the boot. Most hiking boots are fairly rigid and many work boots have rigid toeboxes which cause repeated microtrauma to the toenails. The result is blood underneath the toenails, also called a subungual hematoma. In many cases, the condition is benign and may not cause pain, but in some cases the condition can become very painful due to the pressure underneath the nail. More on black toenails.

Shin Splints: “Shin splints” is a general term used to describe pain on the shin bone and includes problems with the bone, the muscle and the connective tissue. The most common cause for this type of pain is inflammation of the sheath surrounding the shin bone, in the area where the leg muscles originate. Most of the conditions are exercise induced and cause inflammation of the the tissue connecting the muscle to the bone. It is common to develop shin splints when hiking up and down hills because the muscles which pull the foot up are used extensively. More on shin splints.

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