Training with broken wrist

29-04.-2008, 01:07 AM	#1
rymoto Registered User Join Date: May 2007 Location: Pittsburgh, PA, USA Posts: 18	Training with broken wrist I broke my wrist at the UVM collegiate race two weeks ago. I want to continue to some kind of training while I have this cast for 4 weeks. Is there anything besides the extremely boring stationary bike I could be doing?

29-04.-2008, 01:17 AM

daveryanwyoming

Registered User

Join Date: Oct 2006

Posts: 1,311

Re: Training with broken wrist

Quote:

Originally Posted by rymoto

I broke my wrist at the UVM collegiate race two weeks ago. I want to continue to some kind of training while I have this cast for 4 weeks. Is there anything besides the extremely boring stationary bike I could be doing?

That depends on the extent of your injuries and your comfort level training with a cast on. I trained with a broken wrist once many years ago. I set up a fixed gear bike with a front brake that I could operate with my good hand I only rode on lightly travelled and fairly flat farm roads and put in a lot of miles with my cast resting on the bars set fairly high. By the time I got the cast off I was smoking fit with all the solid training miles and breaking the race - recovery cycle, 'course the season was about over as well.....

Good luck and be sure whatever you try you keep it safe, no sense in getting injured again and possibly more severly just to try to hold a bit of fitness.

-Dave

29-04.-2008, 01:29 AM	#3
rymoto Registered User Join Date: May 2007 Location: Pittsburgh, PA, USA Posts: 18	Re: Training with broken wrist I can't do any real biking at the moment. I had to get some pins put in in order to set the bones, so I should probably stick to low impact stuff until the pins are removed.

29-04.-2008, 02:55 AM

ctgt

Registered User

Join Date: Nov 2003

Posts: 59

Re: Training with broken wrist

Quote:

Originally Posted by rymoto

Maybe not, but it's a challenge that you can rise to.

It's not really all that different from the millions of us (okay, thousands if we just include the cyclists) who are snow-bound (or feel that they are) for several months each winter, and can't get outside for their rides. These forums are full of discussions on the value and challenges of training on exercise bikes, bike trainers, rollers, etc.

Think of this an opportunity to build your mental toughness, fall in like with indoor cycling, and surprise anyone who has already writen off your season due to this injury. Really, if you're committed to improving as a bike racer, this is your chance to show it.

And spend some time on your MP3/IPod playlists.

Good luck.

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29-04.-2008, 07:38 PM	#5
Speedskater Registered User Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Southern Germany Posts: 80	Re: Training with broken wrist If you want to play it safe, there´s IMHO no way other than training indoors. Last weekend, I met a guy who had broken his left arm and was training outdors. Four days before the cast would have been taken away, he crashed due to the cast. Guess what? He broke the other wrist as well. On the other hand, I trained outdoors for some weeks with a cast due to a fracture on my left wrist. So, maybe you are es lucky as me or as unlucky as the guy mentioned above...

01-05.-2008, 01:10 PM	#6
skammer Registered User Join Date: Sep 2007 Posts: 25	Re: Training with broken wrist what bone did you break? Speaking from experience, you may jsut want to chill for a while. I broke my scaphoic (nevicular) bone as a result of a botched takeoff on a jump that launched me about 15 feet in the air from the ground (about 6-8 from the topside of the jump), i left the jump a little sideways and wayy too fast, overshot and missed the backside and came down flat. My DH bike ate most of the impact, but my wrist was a casualty. I was unable to race the next day, and went to the urgent care facility local to my home thinking that this was just a bad sprain. HA...urgent care docs aren't trained to recognize probable scaphoid breaks because of the way they present on xrays. 4 weeks later my wrist was still jacked beyond belief and I went to the ortho who did the classic snuff box test and said I know what you did. The Dr. (Dr. William Hugh Baugher) who is a reasonably well known hand doctor in the state of MD did what is called a Matti-Russe bone graft with temporary pins. 12 weeks later I was able to ride again. Two years later the bone graft failed and he then did a "bleeding bone" Matti-Russe with permanent Pins. I have progressed from using a removable (clamshell) style wrist splint/cast (a form of Thumb Spica) to race downhill and riding cross country to not wearing anything at all any more. The reason for posting this recount is to advise you to take care of it and NOT push it. Take some time off, and give it time to heal. If you are any age beyond 18 wrist injuries tend to not recover well without ideal circumstances. I am not a medical doctor or anythign of the sort, but spent countless hours surfing and reading arriving at the conclusion that my recovery is about the best outcome I could have hoped for the second go-round. I have about 85% strength and movement versus my left hand (which is also my dominant hand) If your injury was more traumatic than my scaphoid I would definitely recommend you not stress the joint. I would care not to repeat that episode again...Even being left handed you learn quickly how much you rely on your other side for gross motor skills and such. __________________ Lots of Bikes: 1999 Kona Ku, XTR and Race Face. 2007 Specialized TriCross Expert, 2007 Specialized Tarmac Expert Double. Cannot climb worth a damn, but love to pull my son in his trailer...secret training weapon.

01-05.-2008, 01:35 PM	#7
rymoto Registered User Join Date: May 2007 Location: Pittsburgh, PA, USA Posts: 18	Re: Training with broken wrist Thanks for the advice, I'm doing some work on the stationary bike and ab exercises that dont use my wrist.

01-05.-2008, 01:44 PM

Piotr

Registered User

Join Date: Jan 2007

Location: Draper, Utah

Posts: 363

Re: Training with broken wrist

Quote:

Originally Posted by skammer

what bone did you break? Speaking from experience, you may jsut want to chill for a while.

I broke my scaphoic (nevicular) bone as a result of a botched takeoff on a jump that launched me about 15 feet in the air from the ground (about 6-8 from the topside of the jump), i left the jump a little sideways and wayy too fast, overshot and missed the backside and came down flat. My DH bike ate most of the impact, but my wrist was a casualty. I was unable to race the next day, and went to the urgent care facility local to my home thinking that this was just a bad sprain.

HA...urgent care docs aren't trained to recognize probable scaphoid breaks because of the way they present on xrays. 4 weeks later my wrist was still jacked beyond belief and I went to the ortho who did the classic snuff box test and said I know what you did. The Dr. (Dr. William Hugh Baugher) who is a reasonably well known hand doctor in the state of MD did what is called a Matti-Russe bone graft with temporary pins. 12 weeks later I was able to ride again. Two years later the bone graft failed and he then did a "bleeding bone" Matti-Russe with permanent Pins. I have progressed from using a removable (clamshell) style wrist splint/cast (a form of Thumb Spica) to race downhill and riding cross country to not wearing anything at all any more.

The reason for posting this recount is to advise you to take care of it and NOT push it. Take some time off, and give it time to heal. If you are any age beyond 18 wrist injuries tend to not recover well without ideal circumstances. I am not a medical doctor or anythign of the sort, but spent countless hours surfing and reading arriving at the conclusion that my recovery is about the best outcome I could have hoped for the second go-round. I have about 85% strength and movement versus my left hand (which is also my dominant hand) If your injury was more traumatic than my scaphoid I would definitely recommend you not stress the joint. I would care not to repeat that episode again...Even being left handed you learn quickly how much you rely on your other side for gross motor skills and such.

Thanks for that. I fractured my scaphoid in a crash over 2 weeks ago

and I'm currently wearing the removable cast until the swelling is completely gone

. Luckily my teammate is a sports MD so he recommended a cast despite the fact that it didn't feel too bad. I'd be happy to train indoors through the summer, but alas my knee is also jacked up so no riding for a few weeks minimum.

CTL = 53 (down from 88)

, TSB = +52

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03-05.-2008, 12:51 PM	#9
Bigbananabike Registered User Join Date: Dec 2004 Posts: 560	Re: Training with broken wrist A guy in our race club was hit by a hit and run driver as he was preparing his build up to the Commonwealth games a year and a half ago. He broke his wrist. He managed to do most of his build up on a trainer and got Bronze in the TT (the only event he was entered for). He's probably the hardest man on a bike in New Zealand though!!

03-05.-2008, 02:03 PM	#10
skammer Registered User Join Date: Sep 2007 Posts: 25	Re: Training with broken wrist the big problem with scaphoid fractures is the blood supply. Its a particularly bad bone to break in that the blood supply only enters from the head of the bone. The bone tends to break in the proximal third (nearest the supply) leaving the other 2/3 of bone to basically die if it isn't set back immediately. from my understanding non-union of scaphoid fractures is the norm rather than the exception so healing them can be difficult at best, as was my case (although not the worst since it did eventually heal with two operations). If you screw it up and it permanently non-unions, your options are simple as i understand it: wrist fusion or proximal row carpectomy. Neither option was worth not taking a break for me, so I opted to go as easy as my crazy ass could bear to do. I don't want to sound like a fear monger but any ortho worth his salt will tell you roughly what I am saying. Wrists are complicated double-hinged joints with a variety of things that can happen. Good luck. __________________ Lots of Bikes: 1999 Kona Ku, XTR and Race Face. 2007 Specialized TriCross Expert, 2007 Specialized Tarmac Expert Double. Cannot climb worth a damn, but love to pull my son in his trailer...secret training weapon.

04-05.-2008, 04:10 PM	#11
swampy1970 Registered User Join Date: Feb 2008 Posts: 278	Re: Training with broken wrist I have no clue on how badly broken your wrist is but.... Stick your bike on the trainer and get a set of clip on aerobars. Take ALL the weight off the wrist. If your doc advises against it then stay off the bike and wait. You'll not lose that much fitness that you can't get back in a few weeks but you'll risk making something worse that you'll have to deal with for decades....

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