In 2008 Misty May-Treanor has been forced to leave the US-american TV show "Dancing with the Stars" because she ruptured her Achilles tendon during practice. Misty May-Treanor, born in 1977 in Los Angeles, is a professional beach volleyball player. She and team mate Kerri Walsh were gold medallists in beach volleyball at the 2004 and 2008 Summer Olympics.

October 6, 2008. Misty May appeared in the next show of "Dancing with the Stars" on crutches with her left foot bandaged all the way up to her knee and announced that she is out of the popular dancing competition. The official diagnosis was a ruptured Achilles tendon. She had surgery the following day.

Three days before, Misty May was rehearsing for the show with her dancing partner Maksim Chmerkovskiy in Los Angeles when the accident occurred. “I heard a pop,” she said while practicing the jive on the show’s ballroom set. “I was doing the Lindy Hop. I thought I flew out of control and hit the judges’ stairs, or it felt like I got hit in the back with a baseball bat. Then, I just couldn’t put weight on it.” She blacked out from the pain and was taken by ambulance to Cedars Sinai hospital. The sportswoman told, “I never thought in a million years I'd hurt myself during ballroom… but it can happen.”

She had to undergo more than a half year of rehabilitation in order to ensure a full recovery from that injury. But it has not affected her volleyball career because she was already planning to take time off. She and volleyball partner Kerri Walsh planned to reduce their schedules in the following year to start families.

Glamour Women of the Year Awards
November 10, 2008. One month after surgery, Misty May-Treanor, with camwalker and crutches, and Kerri Walsh attend the event at Carnegie Hall on in New York City.

The cause of the tendon rupture
James Hubbard, M.D. tries to explain:

My best guess was that it was the shoes. Since she usually is barefoot in the sand, her calf and Achilles tendon were not used to stress in that way. Further I wonder if had she warmed up? Probably, but I’ll bet she was not thinking of an injury like she would have been in volleyball competition. It can also be that the tendon was already stressed from competitive sports.

The Achilles tendon attaches your heel to your calf muscle. When your calf muscle flexes, your heel raises and your toes lower. You use this muscle and tendon to walk, run, jump, stand on your toes, etc.

I usually see the injury in people 30 and older who have been playing basketball, softball, etc. They take off on a surge from standing still, and it pops. Excruciating pain follows. Surgery, casting and physical therapy give good results. Sometimes, a partial tear heals with just a splint. With Treanor’s commitment to rehab, she will be back on the volleyball court in several months if she wants to. You may not be so lucky and probably need to migrate to less competitive sports anyway.

You can decrease your risk of this painful injury by staying in good shape and warming up before competition. Wear good shoes. Weekend warriors should attenuate those competitive urges. Start slow, warm up and none of those sudden runs or jumps. Better yet, get into regular walking, running, swimming. Regular moderate exercise is the real Fountain of Youth. Doing nothing, or too much too fast, can be just the opposite.