Just saw Tuesday’s episode of Biggest Loser last night and one of the contestants was diagnosed with the same thing that I am going in for MRI tomorrow to rule out– a femoral neck stress fracture.

Not at all coincidentally, earlier in the episode, they showed a recap of this person bounding across the finish line of a half marathon they made them run after only, what, 6-8 weeks on the ranch? (To boot, she ran it on a basketball court, which just seems to be begging for a one-sided tweak of some sort!)

I clearly remember thinking even before the injury was revealed how unwise it was that they had them do that, and how surprised I was that nobody has been injured from it– especially since I, a 25+-mile-a-week runner for closing in on a year now and 100+ pounds her junior, am going in for an MRI for a “too much too soon” injury for running in a far more responsible manner at far lower a weight.

Then, near the end of the show, they said she had been having some hip pain and I already knew what was coming.  Yikes!

It just seems really unsmart to:

A) Have contestants running half marathons 8 weeks off the couch at 250+ lbs,

B) Have them doing hugely impactful plyo workouts (eg. jumping up on or over 2-3′ platforms, running while carrying other contestants on their backs, etc.) without any kind of ramp-up, and

C) Possibly inciting the rest of America to think that they can/should do the same w/o a doctor or trainer’s supervision.

What do you think?

Oh, yeah, and in case you missed the imbedded update, I am going for an MRI tomorrow morning to rule out femoral neck stress fracture/response because no muscle or ligament damage was apparent in the range of motion tests the sports doc did, the pain seems to be impact-only.  Ugh!