Four things I learnt about singing from my broken foot

For those who may remember, I broke my foot over Christmas. I rolled over my ankle – didn’t even fall down – but a VERY loud crack was audible, like thick bamboo being snapped. And the rest is history.

It’s been about 3 weeks since the original injury. As a result of being a husband, father, and business owner, I’ve got a lot of responsibilities I HAVE to deal with in the week. As a self employed person there is no sick pay, there’s no “emergency cover”, and no immediate family to help me out.

Consequently, as soon as the initial swelling started to go down, I had to get onto the rehabilitation.

Recovery

Now I’ve had MANY injuries and setbacks over the years, so in a weird way, I actually enjoy the day-to-day project of getting my body working again. In many respects, it reflects the nature of both building a great singing voice, and then maintaining it in the face of colds, chest infections, laryngitis etc.

I wrote an article years ago about the things I’d learned from taking up yoga – the body awareness, the nature of it as a regular practice, etc. This week, I thought I’d explain four things I’ve started to learn from dealing with this broken foot, and how I really do see that mirrored in voice training and singing.

1. Range of motion

Even the morning after the injury, I started gently checking the range of motion of my foot. Not shoving it to its extremes and pushing past pain, but cautiously exploring what I could do, what I couldn’t, and what the implications of the damage might be.

I’ve done that multiple times a day every day since then. Drawing circles with the feet, pointing toes, bringing feet to 90°, comparing it side by side with the healthy foot, etc.

The vocal equivalent of this is simple: voices don’t need to be slammed hard every day, but going through a full range of motion (i.e. literal range) with your voice most days is REMARKABLY helpful. It’s a little bit like “use it or lose it”.

2. Rest AND exercise

Recovery always lives in the tension between rest and use. We cannot WILL our way back to health, and we cannot exercise our way out of an injury or vocal problem. But equally, we cannot merely REST our way out of one either.

What’s required is a measured balance: checking in with your body every day, but NOT pushing it as hard as it will go. That is how we re-injure ourselves.

Which raises the obvious question: how do we know how far we can go? That leads us to point three.

3. Test the diagnosis daily

Any diagnosis is really a working hypothesis. The only way to refine it is through careful, low-risk testing over time.

Here’s the tricky thing. The fracture clinic said my foot was broken and I’d need to be in a rocker boot for 3–5 weeks. However, I’ve been able to walk without pain in secure footwear well before that.

A friend who is a consultant surgeon saw me walking in week two, and he commented: “That is not possible even on a hairline fracture – you should be in noticeable pain.”

This does not mean my foot is or is not broken. It simply means that the exact prognosis for any given individual is TRULY individual.

Some people with a given issue take a long time to regain function. Others take less time. Some encounter repeated setbacks. Others experience relatively plain sailing.

The point is this: whatever the current hypothesis is, do gentle exploratory check-ins to test it. You’re not trying to break the hypothesis (or yourself), but you ARE trying to refine your understanding of what you’re actually dealing with.

This sits between two unhelpful extremes: blindly accepting what you’ve been told and resting excessively, or ploughing on as if nothing is wrong.

4. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure

I’ve been going to the gym 2–3 times a week for just under a decade. I’m confident that the reason I didn’t go down when I broke my foot – and the reason I’m recovering faster than the original prognosis – is largely down to this.

Lifting weights doesn’t just strengthen muscles. It improves tendon function and tension, increases resilience, supports proprioception, and aids recovery – even in the face of the ravaging effects of getting older.

That long-term preparation makes a significant difference when something does go wrong.

The same principle applies to the voice. Far too many people get in touch for vocal help AFTER the problem has started – by which point there are often deeply ingrained habits and vocal weakness from a lack of good foundational training.

Maintenance matters. I see my PT every week, and often there’s nothing to report. But because he knows what my “normal” is, if something does crop up – a broken foot, back pain, or minor twinges – he can act immediately and appropriately.

The same is true for voice work.

Conclusion

All injuries take time. From previous broken bones, I expect to feel lingering effects from this one for many months, perhaps even years.

That said, I’m already back to around 95% of what I was doing before by applying the same principles throughout: daily feedback, restraint rather than force, and long-term preparation before problems arise.

These are the same protocols and preventative measures I apply to my own voice and to my clients’ voices.

If this resonates with you and you’re not already working with me, you’re very welcome to book in via the link below.