Training with an injury

[shepherdess]

Hello!  I'm new to this site and wondered if anyone could help me.  Last week I had a nasty fall backwards onto the ice.  Doctor said I'd not broken anything as I appear to have landed on a bone which was almost (!) impossible to break but I was badly bruised.  A week down the line I returned to the rink but am still very sore and can't do any jumps.  Can anyone give me any tips as to what training I can do off ice to keep myself in condition.  I am only on single jumps anyway  Any suggestions??

[AgnesNitt]

Sorry to say that bone bruises (actual bruises to the bone) take months to heal.

Icing won't do you any good. Hot baths and heating pads will make it feel better. When I bruised the bones in my feet, the doctor told me that a relief from pain when applying heat was a good indicator that the bone is bruised.

On the other hand, unlike a broken bone, light work outs don't increase the damage. Be gentle. Apply heat when it hurts. If the heat doesn't work you can always try ice.

[Doubletoe]

Can you just skate without doing any jumps?  If so, it's the perfect time to work on moves in the field and stroking exercises.  I have a pulled hamstring and can't jump or spin right now, so that's what I asked my coach to have me do today in our lesson.

[Query]

You didn't say whether it was a bruise to the bone.

Bruises to your skin and other soft tissue do go down with icing, if you catch them soon enough - what I've read says it is worthwhile for the first 4 days or so.

In any event, if you are seriously inured, what you can safely do sounds like a question for someone with real medical expertise, who has your injury.

[shepherdess]

Thanks for the replies.  According to my GP it is either bruised muscle or bone - or both.  He did say I could carefully remain skating although it may delay the healing process and it may well hurt (hmmmm!!)  but I wouldn't actually be doing any more damage.  Now I can manage the field moves and spins but jumps - even dosed up on paid relief, just aren't happening - I can actually do the jumps off ice but not on the ice.  It seems the muscles flex differently as when skating you are moving before going into the jump and your on a blade not a flat floor.  What I don't want is to lose any muscle I've already built to get height into the jumps whilst I wait for the injury to heal to the point where I can skate properly again.  I

[fsk8r]

Having a few weeks off jumping will not result in you losing your jumps. You use the same muscles to do other things in skating and now is the time to practice all those pesky field moves you would normally neglect and work on your spins. Listen to your body.

[Query]

A lot of skaters do machine strength training - e.g., leg presses on a gym machine - to make jumps better. They also do deep knee bends (with 1 leg or two, depending on how strong you are). So maybe those make sense for you. For me personally, I find such strength training helps a lot even when I'm healthy.

But I'm not medically trained, and have no idea how safe it is to do them with an injury. A lot of "real athletes" train with injuries, but I generally prefer to wait until I'm healed. Plus, once I started practicing falls, I generally don't get hurt except for minor bruises, except when I've tried to do something really stupid, because I had somehow convinced myself that I couldn't be hurt if I knew how to fall. Of course, everyone heals a little differently, on a little different schedule.

One stupid thing I tried was roller blading on a hill. I was headed fast towards a curb, and fell trying to avoid it. I panicked on the way down (I assumed ice falls wouldn't work on asphalt - later experimentation showed that isn't true), and didn't do one of my much practiced falls. I ended up with a nasty bruise to my hip. I iced it for a couple days - not enough. While I was icing it, no black and blue mark occurred. But when I stopped icing it, the mark formed, and it remained painful for weeks - which, as best I understand, might not have occurred had I iced it long enough to begin with.

It may now be too late for you to avoid the long-term bruise, if you haven't already been icing it - the bruise may hang around for a while, because books say that puts you into a much slower healing mode. But if I were you, I would keep icing it for 4 days from the original injury anyway. Then the books vary, and apparently individual athletes vary, what works best after that. Some say alternate warm and cool baths (hot tubs sure feel nice), some say other things.

Incidentally, lots of books say that if you are young enough to still be growing, a bone bruise can be a major deal, because your bones might not grow right. Hope that isn't true for you! If it is, I'd be very cautious.

But it seems to me that your doctor (or a sports PT) should be the one to listen to. Even if he isn't trained in sports medicine (which would be ideal), he spent a lot of years in training, learning how to help people heal. When the rest of us look books, we don't have the context to fully understand what we read.

[shepherdess]

Thanks for all that info Query. I can do some weight training, upper body at least.  Squats/deep knee bends difficult as it hurts getting up.  I am pretty bendy and strong thanks to doing yoga (which I can still do, carefully) and hauling hay bales and feed about when feeding the sheep.  I went to the ice rink twice last week and could only do spins and some fields moves but even some of those pulled on the injury.  I felt as though I'd been kicked down the stairs next morning, but at least I did something. 

I didn't come out in a bruise at all - I didn't ice either but perhaps I should have.  Its two weeks now since I fell.  I actually fell backwards onto my lower back so there was little I could do to save myself.  I was more than  a little shaken up afterwards but it wasn't until I'd driven home and tried to get out of the car that I realised how bad it was.   I have had some lovely long soaks in a hot bath which helped a lot and I must admit it is getting easier to move as time goes on so I must be doing something right.

I doubt very much that I am still growing - I'm now 52!!!  I returned to skating last year after a 36 year absence (other than taking my kids for a skate).  I am so annoyed with myself for doing this when I was just getting back to where I left off.  I'm going to have another go at the rink in a day or so.  I've decided if it's still painful I'm going to leave it completely for a couple of weeks and just do what exercise I can at home.  Watch this space...........

[ChristyRN]

I doubt very much that I am still growing - I'm now 52!!! 

52 is an awesome age and the best one to be at. At least this year. 

[shepherdess]

Yes, awesome age - but the best age will be 53 for next year!! 

Went to ice rink yesterday - getting much better.  Managed a three/waltz jump or two and a salchow without too much pain, just pulled a bit.  I am even managing my morning run with the dogs which, until yesterday was more of a hobble than a run.  Time to chose some nice music for my programme - now that's the best bit of skating!

Thank you all for your help and advice.

[shepherdess]

.....Forgot to mention - have been taking 1000mg of vitamin C for the past week.  I am a great believer in good nutrition and vit C is supposed to be good for healing injuries/new cells etc. So that may well have helped.  I might be a touch disillusioned as it probably takes longer than a week to get into the system, but you never know.