As I have listened, and thought about my own injuries, I want to hear more.
Tell me about some old injury or pain that you had that has gone away since you got serious about fitness. I have put some hard miles on this body that I think are pretty entertaining, so I will get it started.
I am a bit of an adrenaline junkie. I rode bulls for a couple years while on active duty (more on this story in a later post), I have jumped out of an airplane (and want to do a lot more of it), I've been jumping off bridges for as long as I can remember, and I love going fast. This led me into mountain biking and then falling into a really bad crowd: Down-Hillers.
Across the continent you will find a handful of ski resorts open in the summer and still running the lifts. Every-other chair-lift is removed and replaced with a rack that holds four large bicycles. I specify large because these bikes have to be more robust than your garden variety mountain bike.
A downhill bike has to be able to withstand Armageddon. They generally boast front and rear suspension of at least seven inches of travel to support the rider's weight plus backpack and body armor. Yes, I said body armor. This isn't a sport you get into without hard plastic from ankle to knee, wrist to elbow, full spine protection, chest and ribcage, and a full-face helmet with some sort of eye protection to keep your pretty blues intact. To put it in perspective, my cross-country bike is about 22lbs. My Downhill bike is about 36lbs. It looks more like a light motocross bike than a heavy mountain bike.
My favorite resort for this particularly sadistic form of recreation is Whistler in British Columbia. One cool late Sunday afternoon, after a full weekend of riding, thunderclouds began to roll in. Most ski resorts have a policy similar to this: If there is lightning, let no one on the lifts for 45 minutes, get everyone off. My team and I were on the lift for the first lightning strike... through about the fifth. This would be our last run for the day. A-Line.
A-line is a trail known for massive jumps, huge banks, and more hits than the Bee Gees! Many-a-time I have been 35ft in the air wondering if my health insurance would cover this hobby. Below all of those jumps the trail straightens out to a straight rocky downhill where it is customary to go way to fast. The faster you go, after all, the less you feel the bumps!
As I am flying down this particular section of A-line, I begin to become aware of a tree in the upper right hand corner of my field of vision. This tree is moving in a way that just isn't quite right... yep, it's falling across the trail!
Adrenalin already flowing like the Columbia River, your brain quickly starts doing a rudimentary form of geometry.
At my current rate and the current rate of the falling tree, will we meet? Probably.
If I accelerate, can I get through? Acceleration is usually the right answer in this sport, but I don't like the risk in this particular instance. No.
Can I turn right? To the right is practically a cliff that goes straight up. The tree's base is too high for me to get too it safely, even at this speed.
Can I turn left? Same cliff turns more into a very steep hill with trees scattered all over it. Going off this way quickly becomes a game of Plinko between the trees to come to rest, likely unconsious, someplace where my friends wont find me and neither will the patrol for probably too long.
Can I slow down enough to avoid serious injury? Not likely, but lets start trying.
You don't want to lock up the brakes at this point. You will go into a slide, losing some control and not really helping your deceleration enough.
The tree seemed to hit the ground six feet in front of me and I had only slowed to about 25mph. If you are going to crash, you want to get away from the 35lbs of aluminum and steel you are riding on to keep from breaking legs or more sensitive lower body features. Trusting my body armor, I quickly pushed over my handlebars, letting the momentum of my body carry me as my bike stopped at the fallen tree. I would continue airborne for about another 20 feet before revisiting the dirt in a tumble.
When I stopped rolling I realized my wrists were sprained, my left shoulder was out of socket, and I had rocks under my leg armor that had cut into my knee cap. I was familiar with how to get a shoulder back in socket as it happened to my right shoulder often from an old bull-riding injury (later post). This one was different; I couldn't get it back in!
As I struggled with the shoulder, I looked up in time to see Joe jumping over the same tree. With it already down, he had just enough time to slow his bike into it and jump over it sideways. He quickly recognized my bike already buried in the branches, and looked up to recognize me futzing with my shoulder.
"Are you alright?!"
"I'm good, but my shoulder is out of socket and I can't get it back... aargh! ...never mind, got it. I'm good. I am going to get down to the first aid station before I go into shock and tell them this thing is down. Would you walk up hill a ways and slow people down?"
I grabbed my bike... it had survived the Armageddon test... and slowly headed downhill with my hands holding the bars only enough to feather the brakes; despite tape and leather wrist-wrap gloves, my wrists hurt pretty bad. If not for this extra protection, they likely would have been broken. On the way down, I saw a crew working on a new jump. I noticed a radio among them; part of my military training.
"Are you the guys I would tell if there was a tree down on A-line?"
"Yeah we are."
"There's a tree down on A-line. Radio the first aid office for me and tell them they got one walking wounded coming down."
The medic was waiting for me at the lift.
He recommended x-rays and such before calling it a day, but my crew and I all live in Southern Washington and Northern Oregon; we had a long drive ahead of us. Fortunately, Tylenol 3 with Codeine is over the counter in Canada. I took a few of those and had a beer while the guys loaded the van.
I would later learn that I broke my left wrist in a minor sort of way (two fractures splitting the radius long ways). The shoulder would be inconclusive for the next year. X-rays showed nothing and the doc didn't want to do an MRI. He said to give it a few months. He told me that if it was serious, I wouldn't have been able to get it relocated myself.
Six months later I was in his office again, I still couldn't lift it over my head without being VERY Careful. He recommended Physical Therapy. After three months of PT, I was a little better, but the PT couldn't fix me. He told me, "Either you need surgery or I am a lousy Physical Therapist." Back to the bone Dr.
Gadolinium MRI was inconclusive.
"After nine months? You don't say!"
"Why don't you give it another six months and see me again?"
"I can't keep living like this. I am going to take it to the next level. It is either going to get stronger, or it's going to break enough for you to do something about it."
"Well, start slow, and be careful."
So I started lifting the heaviest weights I could muster: Soup Cans... yeah, the small ones. I pushed it until it hurt and I started to grow. Eventually, I made it up to 25lb shoulder presses. WooHoo!! I was stoked, I was getting stronger. But it always ached. All day, all night... I guess I would have to learn to live with pain.
A year later I brought home P90X for my wife and I. The pull-ups were hell on that shoulder. The shoulder presses were hell on that shoulder. The push-ups were... you get the point. Everything hurt... at first. Oh, and the push-ups had to be on stands, no exceptions, I couldn't bend them flat enough to be on the floor for more than a couple push-ups.
After 30 days, it didn't hurt all the time. After 60, it only hurt sometimes. After 90, seldom. After a year, gone. Every once in a while, I will use it wrong and it will flare up for a day or so, but the pain is gone.
I have several more stories like this and I bet you do too. Let me hear them?
Links:
Monkey See, Monkey Do! Why I believe in DVD Fitness
How do I Get My Husband to Exercise?
Amplify Your Relationships With Fitness
Straight Dope: Study: Exercise Prevent Premature Aging.
I'm a Coach!
No comments:
Post a Comment