Dr. Breithaupt was puzzled. The year was 1855, and this Prussian army doctor was noticing that many of his young military recruits were experiencing severe pain in their feet or ankles early in their basic training, particularly after prolonged marching. Dr. Breithaupt discovered that the soldiers were actually developing incomplete fractures of the bones from overuse. He called the condition “march foot , and wrote the first paper describing it. Today we call it “stress fracture”.
Stress fractures are defined as incomplete partial fractures of bones. They comprise 10% of all sports injuries, with 99% of them occurring in the lower extremity.
Unlike “pathological fractures” which occur in weakened or porotic bone (especially in elderly patients), stress fractures occur in otherwise healthy bone due to repetitive mechanical loading. It non-athletes, they often occur when a sedentary period is followed by a sudden increase in activity, or performance of an unaccustomed activity. In athletes, they occur after increasing level of training too quickly.