Diary of an injured Adventure Racer - AC Joint

Well my fast improving paddling has come to an abrupt halt

Had a rather big mishap on Sunday, competing in a 4 hour Mountain Bike enduro when I failed to land a technical jump and went over the bars.

Tried to roll as best I could but landed on the tip of my right shoulder and "pop" there goes my AC joint.

Met with the surgeon today and he agreed that as I am very keen to get back to paddling/swimming etc as quickly as possible he would surgically fix the Type 3 dislocation/seperation. See Pic below.



and for the not so squeemish this shows exactly what I am having done tomorrow night . (plated and screwed)

Will keep you posted on how the recovery goes

Ouch, best of luck with the recovery.

Best to do it straight away Iused to ride DH MTB and also semi seperated my AC and never had it repaired. My whole back and body is very uneven now to compensate and I must get it fixed!

Eish - strength to you for your recovery...

I too have suffered this from an MTB accident many years ago, hence the rightarmbad moniker.

I never had surgery and the pain got worse and worse, until one day I went for a paddle and it just disappeared.

The only real effect now apart from the lump in my shoulder, is a slight loss of power in some movements. 10-15% ?
Sometimes when paddling I get a numb hand from the nerves being pinched, usually means I didn't take care to set the feather angle properly.
As a bonus, I now have much more shoulder flexibility for swimming, but the loss of power sort of negates it and overall I go slower.
I have seen some really bad outcomes from surgery and one really great outcome from surgery in others I have met with this condition.
It seems to be very important to get straight into weight exercises as soon as the initial healing has started.

Hope you have a good outcome.

Well the op went well, shoulder starting to settle down thanks to copious amounts of opiates Have to rest it for two weeks then have it reviewed. Will keep you posted.

So is that just temporary metal until a grafted in ligament takes hold?

Hope you have a speedy recovery AR. I did my wrist and two ribs on the MTB last year. Being injured sucks!

Rightarmbad wrote:

So is that just temporary metal until a grafted in ligament takes hold?

From what I remember him saying yes, it will be in for about 6-12 months? After that it's a case of seeing how stable the joint will be, if it does become unstable then they start looking at a grafted or synthetic ligament. The plan with this op is that by forcing the torn ligaments back against one another they will knit together and hold once the plate is removed.

Thanks Beejay, was trying to save the wrist by rolling (which has worked for me once on a road bike) but it seems I used up my luck then.

I wish I was offered an option like that when I did mine.

Black dog came sniffing at my door yesterday .....put it down to detoxing from all the powerful painkillers (had enough of feeling sluggish) and the frustration of no physical activity. Very determined not to gain weight and to keep a positive perspective. Went online for some retail therapy and ordered a Kurt Kinetic fluid resistance trainer for my bike so as soon as I get the go ahead from the surgeon I can start cycling indoors. Surgeon wants me to stay off the road/mountain bikes for a couple of months. Also looking forward to some hydrotherapy to get the lats working again, they are bloody sore from next to no movement.

I know that feeling all too well AR! Good move on getting the windtrainer happening, it'll help getting those endorphins flowing again and stop the black dog turning into a great big black bear!!!!

The only advise I can give you is don't rush the recovery. It's always a balanceing act between doing enough to keep the muscles etc from turning to mush and not injurying yourself further. Good luck.

Well one week on and daily life away from training is starting to return to normal, can drive, dress myself, etc etc just end up sore at the end of the day and sleeping is another matter, woken several times per night when I roll the wrong way

Decided to start arranging a Vet's team to replace my solo Anaconda Adventure Race Solo entry in November.

I am going to focus on the run and get 3 other vets (40+) for the other legs and see how we go about getting on the podium.

Off to a good start with Martin Gunda of Bunbury doing the ocean paddle, just gotta secure a good swimmer and mountain biker....I've got mountain bikers queuing up to do it but they're under the vet age bracket at the moment.

If I can manage to get a good Vet's team together to challenge at the top end that will go some way to curbing my disappointment at not competing as a solo

Update: tonight had one of the states top vets mountain bikers come onboard, just a swimmer to go

Hey Brett

Hope u have yr entry in already, as entries have closed until the final 2 weeks where they may have limited spots left!

not bad...........600 entries 3 months out!

Yeah, I entered as a solo within days of the entries opening, so just a matter of converting entry to a team.

Back to see the Surgeon tomorrow, hopefully for an all clear to start rehab and training

EDIT 11/08 - Email back from rapidascent, all good to enter a team (which we got a swimmer for today) so it's full steam ahead

Thanks for the PM's and messages of support from those of you who have been through this and similar surgery, good to know others have been through this and are back doing what they love.

Saw the Surgeon today. He is happy with progress, have good alignment and range of movement (ROM) without any impingement (catching or trapping of nerves) during shoulder movement.

So the prognosis is excellent.

Next 6 weeks I am allowed to run & indoor cycle (doesnt want me to risk injury cycling outdoors), I am allowed to gently stretch to improve ROM, but not exercise shoulder. After that 6 weeks he says I should be ready to start light swimming

thebigadski wrote:

Hey Brett

Hope u have yr entry in already, as entries have closed until the final 2 weeks where they may have limited spots left!

not bad...........600 entries 3 months out!

BTW, from what I hear the Avon could have been billed as an AR from all the running/walking/clamouring over rocks that was done!

My Kurt Kinetic (indoor cycling trainer) arrived at the post office today. So excited

Got it home and set it up in front of the projector screen in the lounge, threw on the accompanying spinervals DVD and did an 80 minute workout.

Was great to have the endorphins flowing again despite my shouder throbbing

I now feel like throwing up, probably having flushed all those drugs outta my system from the past few weeks

Thumbs up to the trainer, really is just like being on the road and is very quiet.

Probably spend a week just on the trainer before seeing how the shoulder handles the jolting of running again.

Edit - Another 110 minutes on the trainer today, getting the blood flowing again has been soo good for the body and mind and slept like a baby last night

Couldn't help myself, the weather was just so nice today

After doing my volunteering duties marshalling at the Pinjarra Classic bike race got home and went out for an easy 7km beach run.

Figured running on the soft sand would limit the jolting of the shoulder.

Shoulder was pretty uncomfortable during the run but it was good to get the legs ticking over. The post run stretching was very welcome too. Shoulder pulled up pretty sore for an hour or so afterwards, but a few hours later and I'm feeling good.

Will give it another go mid week then hopefully back to full distance stuff by next weekend.

Shoulder seems to have plenty of range of movement to be good for paddle stroke movement, so it's just a matter of giving it time to heal. 5 weeks to go!

Talk about "Balance to your training week", since doing my shoulder and only being able to concentrate on running and cycling I have been battling leg problems ...

Seems I've been going out a bit hard now that I have all this extra time away from paddling and the pool.

Main problem has been hamstrings and in sympathy calf muscles which usually bear the brunt of tightness.

Funny, I had shaken these problems which I battled with during my triathlon days after I took up paddling,.. seems the paddling helped to keep my glutes, hammys and hence calves looser

Only 3 weeks now until I can return to paddling, shoulder has full ROM during stretching now so all is looking good