Broken Leg? The Cast Helps Bones. Muscles, Not So Much. 😩

Getting back to normal after having your leg cast

Tom was frustrated. His leg and lower back hurt in ways he couldn’t explain. He had tried everything—orthopedic specialists, neurologists, pain management, chiropractic care, massage therapy, acupuncture, and physical therapy.

Every medical test came back “normal.”

At 42, keeping up with his kids, home, work, and friends felt harder than it should. Why was he still struggling?

Then, he consulted the Bridging® Institute which uncovered a key piece of his history: years ago, he had broken his leg and spent nearly eight weeks in a cast. Restoring the ease to his movement required addressing many layers of compensations, which are outlined below.

Now, Tom is doing better, because of Bridging. He’s able to exercise without unusual pain, helps with his kids’ sports, and is otherwise active. He still visits the Bridging® Institute quarterly to address tightness or occasional pains that surface with the rigors of life. Bridging® has been a game changer allowing Tom to keep active!

Let’s dig into what happens to the body when it’s been immobilized with a cast.

How a Cast Affects Your Body

In the Blink of an Eye, Life Changes … One moment, everything is normal. The next, you’re in the hospital with a broken bone and a cast. Your focus shifts from workouts and routines to simply healing and recovering.

(NOTE: Although this discussion focuses on a leg, similar issues are present for any bone put in a cast.)

Once the cast comes off, you start physical therapy. Your walking improves, but your balance and pain levels are far from back to normal. Questions and tests get no new information or direction. You’re told, “You should be happy you can still walk — it was a bad injury!”

But you want more than just walking — you want to get back to your active life!

What you really need are answers, direction, and a path to full recovery.

Common Issues After Having a Cast

These are just some of the lingering struggles we hear from clients:

• Why do I still have pain?
• When will my strength and balance return?
• Why does movement feel so difficult?
• What else is going on?

Traditional approaches often miss the bigger picture. But a Bridging® assessment can pinpoint the root cause and help restore function.

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Why Does a Cast Create Unexpected Long-Term Issues?

An Engineering Root-Cause Perspective (Because I’m an engineer!)

A cast does more than just hold your bone in place—it affects your entire body’s movement patterns, and shuts down the muscles in the area of the cast. Getting back to normal after having a bone cast involves solving five layers of movement disruption:

Immobilization: Which joints and muscles were restricted, and for how long?

Compensations: How did you move, sleep, and function while wearing the cast? The odd postures create a layer of stress and strain which also needs addressing.

The other injuries: A broken leg is one thing, but how did your body absorb the injury overall? Twists, impacts, and other forces also leave lasting effects. These were not important in the beginning, but they become important to your complete recovery.

Prior injuries and surgeries: Older disruptions can complicate recovery.

Early life events: Were there pre-existing movement inefficiencies before the injury?

These layers don’t resolve with exercise, stretching, or standard massage.

Bridging® identifies, supports, and resets affected muscle coordination to restore ease of movement.

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Ready to Move with Ease Again?

If lingering pain, stiffness, or imbalance is holding you back, it’s time for a new approach. Bridging® offers a gentle, fast, and long-lasting reset to get you feeling and moving better.

• Experience noticeable progress every session.
• Sessions are spaced 3–6 weeks apart for steady improvement.
• No matter how long ago your injury was, we can help.

The Bridging® team is here to support you every step of the way.

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Why Does a Cast Have Such Far-reaching Implications After Healing?

Fundamentally, a cast is put on to keep a bone aligned while healing. The cast completely takes muscles offline and it’s hard to get them going again in the many ways they need to work. What especially gets lost is the tiny micromovements which lets your joints flow and transition with ease.

To explain why an immobilization is such a big deal, let’s revisit my Physical Activity Formula:

Physical Activity = Strength + Balance – Pain – Anxiety

A cast disrupts this equation by impacting strength, balance, and pain—the three factors impacted when muscles and their micromovements have been shut down. Here’s how:

1. STRENGTH
Immobilization from a cast impacts muscle strength in two key ways:

Muscle Atrophy: While constrained by the cast, your muscles weaken from inactivity. You lose muscle mass, leading to reduced strength.

Muscle Activation Dysfunction: Muscles operate in teams. Immobilization disrupts these “teams,” throwing off their coordination and reducing your ability to move efficiently.

2. BALANCE
Your center of gravity and balance reactions are affected for three main reasons:

Asymmetries: Surgical trauma, including incisions, creates uneven tensions and postures in your body throwing off your center of gravity.

Weakness: Loss of muscle strength makes it harder to respond to sudden positional shifts, increasing the risk of falls.

Slowed Reactions: Impaired muscle function caused by the immobilization is often a culprit in poor reactions to ‘catch’ your balance.

3. PAIN
Post-cast pain can show up in random ways. We find it often relates to muscle strain from the odd positions of resting during the weeks with the cast. These cause:

Asymmetric muscle tensions: Muscles are pulled in odd directions and they don’t easily go back to normal once you begin moving again.

Odd muscle strains: These result from systemic shifts and strain in the rest of the body. It can be from unusual movement patterns, or from off-center resting postures.

4. ANXIETY
Yes, your anxiety is heightened from the unpredictability of the pain, balance, and inefficiency of trying to be yourself. It’s a lot! And those around you don’t understand since you look ‘normal.’