The Run Smarter Podcast · Brodie Sharpe

Exclusive AMA: Stress Fractures, Under-Striding, Strength Sets, & Compression Socks

·49 min·3 clips
Three stress fractures means taking the plan on the conservative side.
Brodie opens a previously published exclusive patron ask me anything and signals four listener questions. He keeps the framing simple and practical, treating the session as a chance to turn runner problems into decisions that actually help rather than neat slogans. Laura goes first. She is dealing with three stress fractures below the ankle and wants to know how a training week can still be built around that injury, with the spin bike, elliptical, and strength training as the main options after a run-heavy routine. Brodie does not pretend that can be answered in one line. He says he would need to know which bones are involved, how severe the fractures are, how far along the healing process is, and what the runner can do right now before giving any firm advice. That caution is the point. He keeps the discussion tied to the injury details and the next sensible step, because those are the things that decide whether the move is backing off, maintaining frequency, or shifting work elsewhere. The conversation then moves to Joanne. She asks whether it is possible to understride after a 3D gait analysis report says overstride is reduced bilaterally, and she is trying to read that result against a photo she posted. Brodie stops to define the term from the ground up. He describes the side-on moment of initial foot contact, uses the body’s center of mass as the reference point, and explains that the question is how far in front of that line the foot lands. He does not offer a magic cutoff. Instead, he treats overstride as a useful observation, not a number that can be separated cleanly from every other runner’s mechanics. If the foot is clearly too far ahead of the body, that matters. If not, the label is less important than the broader movement picture. The session keeps that same practical pace through the rest of the questions. Brodie keeps answering in a way that assumes the listener can follow the logic, even when the answer is conditional. The later questions stay in the same practical lane, which fits the episode’s larger habit of asking what is worth doing, what is worth monitoring, and what is better handled gradually. Across the whole ask me anything, he keeps coming back to the same sequence: define the problem, identify the variables, and choose the next sensible step. That makes the episode feel less like a performance and more like a runner thinking aloud with the listener. It is conversational, but not loose. It is educational, but not detached. And it stays grounded in the real question every injured runner is asking, which is not just what happened, but what should I do next.

As heard by us

A careful clinic-style AMA for runners who want context before action.

Brodie treats this patron AMA as a place to think through running problems that rarely yield to a quick rule. Laura's stress-fracture question sets an injury-first tone, while Joanne's gait-analysis question shifts the focus to mechanics, definitions, and what a report can and…

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

For runners sorting stress fractures, gait-analysis confusion, and injury-week trade-offs.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →
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