Stay Healthy While Coming Back from an Injury

Claire K.

This post is written primarily by my training client Claire K. about her experience healing from a broken collar bone. I asked her if she would write the article to share some of what she learned while going through the healing process. I think it is instructional for all of us!

From Mary Duke: Claire has been a personal training client since June 2015. Having been forced into early retirement, Claire decided to use some of the time she now had available to focus on improving her fitness and readiness for the variety of athletic challenges she enjoys.

Prior to starting training, Claire was a cyclist doing a few century rides a year and practiced yoga on a regular basis. She hadn’t worked out in a gym in decades.  In August 2016, Claire also started rowing on the Potomac and fell in love with the sport, adding it to her already busy workout schedule.In October 2017, having just completed a Century ride (100 miles) 5 days earlier, Claire fell while on a leisurely bike ride and broke her collarbone.  This is her advice/story about recovering from that injury.

From Claire:

Let your body get the rest it needs.

After I fell off my bike, I was initially in denial about the extent of my injury. I drove myself home after the accident, told my coach I would still be able to race in a Regatta in 2 weeks, and still thought I could visit my son in Blacksburg 2 days later. When I realized I needed to go to the emergency room, the doctor who evaluated me said to do pretty much nothing for 6 weeks. The level of pain I had also kept me from doing much.  I was very concerned about losing my fitness as it had taken me a couple years to get to the point of being in decent shape.  I really missed the endorphins from all my activity. Between rowing, cycling, yoga and working out in the gym, I pretty much exercised most days.  My body really missed it.  Exercise also makes me feel good about myself and I missed that positive reinforcement as well. Rowing crew is a team sport and I really missed that camaraderie even though we were doing our off-season training at the time.  I got a bit depressed, but eventually just had to surrender to the reality of the healing process.

Ask for and accept help

In the initial days, I was in a lot of pain and very dependent on my friends.  I couldn’t even open a bottle of water.  I couldn’t cut my pain pills in half (I tried to minimize how many I took due to fear of addiction).  I couldn’t take the trash out.  Heck, I couldn’t even put a bra on for some time or take a shower.  Friends were over almost every day for a while, but even after I could manage some physical tasks, I really needed and relished the company for emotional support.

Start back slowly

Once I got the okay from my doctor at 6 weeks to do some activities, I had to keep my enthusiasm in check to avoid aggravating the injury and/or tweaking other muscles that hadn’t been used for a while.  I really wanted to get back into everything.  At the 2.5 months doctor checkup, I was cleared to do rowing and biking, but still needed to be careful about how fast I jumped back in.  I wanted to rejoin my crew team in their winter workouts, but I’m not ready for that yet.

Set realistic and achievable goals

When I was initially cleared to return to exercise, though with restrictions, Mary Duke set up workouts for me that were achievable.  I didn’t want to attempt to do what I had done before the injury as it would have been very discouraging to not be able to do it and I would also risk doing damage to my healing collar bone.I was discouraged at first as I’d clearly lost fitness and I really had to push myself to get to the gym and stick with the workout plan.  I had to keep reminding myself how much I loved the sports I do, that my injury would heal and that if I didn’t stick with my conditioning program, it would just be harder when/if I decided to get back into my regular activities.

Develop a plan and follow it and track your progress

I have been seeing gradual improvement which is very encouraging.  I’m a long way from being ready to row in a regatta or bike a century, but I will get there.  Mary Duke has been very supportive which has been a HUGE key to my being able to stick with this.  So, get yourself a cheerleader.I need longer term goals for myself that are achievable.  On the cycling side, I want to be able to do half century rides in the spring and certainly a full century by the fall (SeaGull Century).  A huge stretch goal would be to do the Mountains of Misery bike ride in Blacksburg in May.  That is something I couldn’t really have done before my injury – lots of hills!For rowing, there is a race called the Henley in England in the summer and the Charles in the fall in Boston.  My goal is to be good enough to race there.