Blow to the Ego or Rite of Passage

I went back and forth on if I should share this story. I was embarrassed I had crashed so badly once again and didn't want anyone to know.  Then I got to reading all the forums and articles of others that have done the same.  Their stories helped me in my recovery, gave me hope and reason not to feel like a big loser.

One week before the first Wisconsin Off Road Series Race of the season I crashed hard.  Misread a slippery rock drop, forgot to open up my suspension, when I hit the bottom the bike didn't give and kicked me right over the handlebars.  I landed on my right shoulder.  The pain was excruciating.  My first thought was, "there goes my collar bone."  This was not one of those crashes where you jump right up and check the status of your bike.  I was down for a few minutes and slowly limped up, got dizzy and nauseous and had to lie back down because I thought I would faint.  Luckily I was with my buddy Ben Schreiber.  He was able to bike back to the car while I waited near the crash site. 

 Not again, not another season stripped from me due to a shoulder injury.  Devastation set in and it was all I could do to keep it together.  I immediately got on my phone and started google searching shoulder injuries, symptoms and causes in effort to self diagnose.  After doing some range of motion / pain tests I knew it couldn't be broken.  I called my chiropractor and set up an appointment to get an x-ray.  I sent a screen shot of the x-ray to a friend that works at UW Sports Med in effort to bypass a general practitioner and speed the discovery of the issue.  She took one look and knew, told me I had a Grade 3 AC Separation then set me up with the shoulder specialist the next day to confirm.  Sure enough it was, I tore all the ligaments holding my collar bone to my sternum.  My advice is to get an x-ray immediately, sooner you figure out what's wrong, sooner you can begin treatment.  The specialist said they would rather not go the surgery route to connect the bones back together as they were finding many people were getting severe arthritis later in life.  Said I'd just have a floating collar bone and a bump but that I'd be stable without the ligaments as long as I stay strong. 

Back to the google search.  Forums, recovery time, treatments, personal stories, I read everything I could find.  I was able to heal like the wolverine thanks to all the suggestions from others that have done the same.  I am a very disciplined person in training and was the same in recovery.  I am sharing this in hopes that it could help speed up the recovery process for others that like to fly over their handlebars.  Feel free to reach out for more suggestions / explanation should something like this happen to you.

Here is the report on my weekly treatments and recovery:

Week 1 - Focus on Pain reduction and healing:  Rest, Ice every couple hours for 20 minutes, Walk or light spin on the trainer every morning to get the blood pumping, 1 Tylenol and 1 Ibprophen every 4 hours, Lidocaine patch over the injury, very very light range of motion exercises, extra sleep, nap. 

Week 2 - Everything in week 1 plus started to incorporate more range of motion exercises and a few strengthening exercises, wall pushups, arm raises.  Was back on the trainer full boar this week.  Really tight in my neck and back pains surrounding the shoulder.  Got a massage from Megan, my therapist from Integration Bodywork, really helped in cleaning up the "junk."

Week 3 - Backed off the icing and pain killers.  Still on Lidocaine patch.  Purchased a basic shoulder brace off of Amazon and wore it for road biking.  Back to full training on the road, no trails. Range of motion, stretching and added strength, push ups, arm raises w/ light weights.  Tested it out during race pre ride, felt strong and secure, ended up racing the Iola Bump and Jump and was fine.

Iola Bump and Jump Pre Ride w/ Shoulder Brace

Week 4 - Done w/ Lidocaine patches.  1 hour massage focuses solely on neck and shoulder area.   Started trail riding w/ brace on, taking it easy, cautious, felt stable.


Week 5 - Still a dull pain during certain movements. Able to sleep on that side.  No brace, no pain killers, no ice.  Physical therapy and strengthening 3-5 days a week. Raced Battle of Camrock, felt more sore tying my shoes and cleaning my bike then racing.


Week 6 - Still some minor agitation every now and again.  1 hour massage makes it so much better. Feel like I'm back to full strength on the bike.   Was timid first couple rides but just about back to normal. 


Week 7 - Diligent with physical therapy and strength training.  Raced Mt. Morris Challenge, no pain.

Week 8 - I'll put in 3 - 5 days of PT for the rest of my biking career.  Staying strong and mobile is the key.



Mt. Morris Challenge

I asked Scott Robinson, owner of Integration Bodywork to provide the more scientific reason why massage can help speed up injury recovery.

Happy Healing! 

Four ways massage aids injury recovery

Calm the nervous system

Traumatic injuries, like separating your shoulder in a bike crash, is a powerful sympathetic (fight-or-flight) stimulus. This keyed up, high stress state can persist for hours, days, or even weeks after the injury, depending on severity. It is well established that massage and bodywork of nearly any kind is a parasympathetic (rest, digest, heal) stimulus. This makes massage a great tool for bringing your body back to normal so it can start focusing on healing itself.

Improved blood and lymphatic flow

Blood travels through blood vessels to brings nutrients, healing factors, and other beneficial elements to the injury site, as well as take waste products away to be processed by the appropriate system (DO NOT CALL THEM TOXINS, that’s not a real thing). Lymph also part of the circulatory system, and plays a major role in clearing waste and debris from the injury site. Massage has been shown to mechanically stimulate vasodilation, which means it improves circulation by making the vessels bigger. Traditionally, massage was thought to actually move blood around, but that has been shown not to be the case.

Stimulate mitochondrial activity

Mitochondria are the organelles that turn carbohydrate and fat into ATP, which is the actual fuel used by the body (carbs and fat are to ATP what coal and natural gas are to electricity). Any process that requires an energy input will happen faster when there is more ATP available. Massage has been shown to stimulate the production of ATP by the mitochondria, so it can improve recovery for any stress, injury, race, or otherwise, by speeding up healing processes.

Restore normal movement patterns

Most of the time, injuries boil down to tearing or otherwise destroying some tissue; bones break, ligaments and tendons sprain, muscles strain, etc. All painful movement creates compensatory patterns, but acute and traumatic injuries often create splinting patterns that protect the injury by severely limiting movement of the injured structure. This is a good thing, especially for the first 24-48 hours because it improves the ability of the injured structures to knit themselves back together. However, after those first 24-28 hours, or even sooner, it’s critical to start moving in the most normal, pain-free way possible. Movement helps lay down scar tissue in a useful way, and movement is required for venous blood and lymph to move through the circulatory system. Massage, or at least the kind of work Megan and I do, helps restore these normal movement patterns.

www.integrationbodywork.net