slight injury

wilburtrump

Good evening Ladies and Gentlemen...

I wasn't planning on my first post on the forum being about this, but as things turn out it is. I'm just seeking a bit of general advice from anybody that may have had the same sort of thing happen to them.

Oh, by the way, I'm Will, I popped along for my first ride with the mid/nastie sunday group a couple of weeks ago and hugely enjoyed it, was looking forward to many more this summer and maybe a spot of racing too...

However, on Friday afternoon I had a run in with a white van in camden that has left me with a completely smashed collarbone on the left side. I've had a plate put in and the doctor's advised at least a couple of months off of the bike.

What can I do to stop myself going mad and losing my fitness? Is there anything or do I just have to sit it out and wait for it to heal up whilst eating large quantities of chocolate, chips and other assorted deep fried goods?

I look forward to any advice! One friend has already suggested setting up the turbo next to a fridge freezer so you've got something to lean on whilst you train and don't have to hold on to the handlebars...

Thanks,

Will

geoffg

we know where you are coming from Will...gutted for you ...first, hope you have the sucker who did this sorted.....British Cycling are great on this ...hope you are a member or full member of CTC either should help you....as to fitness our most recent collar bone sufferers are Theo and Carmelo...I still have a metal reinforcement as the bone has never knitted even after a bone graft...SO..first bit of advice....don't stress or load the bone unduly for first 2-3 weeks as the bone needs that time to regrow and heal.....definitely set up turbo and simply spin in zone 2...will retain about 70% of your fitness even at that level.....keep the shoulder mobile but not loaded as that will help retain the mobility in the joint.....don't comfort eat as you will regret the pounds you will have to lose....you may find the riding after 3 weeks a bit jarring, but you must judge that yourself depending on your comfort/pain threshold....2 months seems long, but depends on the severity of damage there and elsewhere......hope you get back to riding soon

Shaun

Will
I think I was on the CCA ride you mention, if you were the guy on the red Cervelo? We chatted at the 3 Tuns afterwards. Sorry to hear about your recent accident. Hope to see you out again once you're mended.

Shaun

ScouseChris

drink beer and red wine!!

errr.. beer is fattening so drink twice as much red!!

wilburtrump

Yeah, that was me. It's been pretty awful timing! Finally getting the schedule where I can commit a bit of time to joining a club and this happens. Rubbish.

There were plenty of witnesses and the police have statements from them and the driver of the van, who hung around till I was carted away in the ambulance, so he wasn't a complete waste of space! I've only just got back from the hospital, so will be getting onto the admin side of things tomorrow. Fingers crossed.

Geoff, thanks for the advice, I've got a few exercises from the hospital physio. If anybody could recommend another more local physio that could help, that would be great too... I'll get the turbo set up. How long do you think I should rest for before starting back on it? The only other notable injury sustained was a bit of road rash and large laceration to my left hip. Fortunately was in civvies so didn''t rip up any expensive lycra!

Hope the training for the Cent Cols is going well, Shaun, I read your account of the BCM600. Epic stuff! Sounds like you're on track...

PhilA

Hi Will,

I very recently broke my hand and that took me off the road for about 10 weeks, so I can really empathise with your position. Like you I was pretty keen to try and retain as much of my hard fought fore fitness, and the turbo was sensibly the only viable option. As Geoff alludes to above, intervals were just not an option, and so I spent silly amounts of time doing long endurance sessions varying from 2 to 3hrs - horrible - for about the first 4 weeks. To steady my upper body throughout these sessions I used a set of step ladders. The advantage with the ladders was that I could safely vary the height of my body position by using the different steps, and this really helped to alleviate any back pain that accumulated from holding the same position for long periods. The steps were also useful for holding drinks and bananas etc. A word of warning, you do need to work on the step angle relative to the bike so as you do not catch them with your feet!

After about four weeks I began to gently introduce longish intervals of about 10/5mins, and these continued until I was ready to return to the road. At no point did I go for the all -out 1min/2min type intervals.

Result - Whilst I lost all my top end speed (this is all relative of course), the endurance aspect of my fitness remained pleasingly steady, almost unchanged. So good luck and rest assured you will recover and your fitness will return.

Stef

Sorry to hear that Will. And really bad luck to get back from hospital just after the Giro has finished and a month before the Tour starts! Still you have the Dauphine next week if you are still off work. Best of luck with the recovery.

Shaun

Phil's turbo sessions were more epic than my BCM600...

Theo-saurus

Hi will
I broke my collar bone about a year ago (those bloody white vans). I just did turbo for ages which helped a bit but probably not as much as i hoped. If I had done longer sessions like Phil maybe It would have been a bit better. You must accept that your not going to be as good as you were before. My advise would be to keep it varied, don't just do long hard efforts do some spinning as well. If you have rollers then hope on those this will improve your leg speed and stability which is what I lost when I went back to racing.
As for going not mad, I failed to achieve this. Just listen to music or watch some racing whilst turboing to pass the time.
Good luck hope you heel soon
Theo