A stress fracture is the breakdown or crack in one of the bones in the body, usually caused by repeated or prolonged stress. The most common sites for stress fracture are in the foot, lower leg, thigh, and vertebrae of the back.
Stress fractures are overuse injuries.
They occur mostly in sports requiring repetitive jumping or bounding like basketball, gymnastics, track and field, long distance running and dancing. Initially pain increases with activity and decreases with rest. If training continues, however, the pain progressively increases. In competitive athletes, modifications in training are initiated in order to maintain conditioning while fracture heals. In the early stages of healing apply ice packs over injured area for 20 to 30 minutes every 3-4 hours for the first three days or until symptoms subside.