Any tips for keeping fit with a broken arm?

si. d

Hi all,

A slip on the Saturday club run last weekend has resulted in a broken arm! So i'm now stuck with a cast. I was wondering if anyone had any tips or ideas for exercise I can do until I get it off. My main worry is what will it smell like it if I sweat on it!

Cheers

Anonymous

Cycling. On the turbo.

Pokerface

si. d wrote:

My main worry is what will it smell like it if I sweat on it!

It'll stink. No way around that really.


It's hard to do any meaningful exercise that won't involve you sweating though. So maybe a better question is: how can I hide the stink of my cast for 6 weeks!?

Pross

By the time your cast comes off it will stink anyway - I broke both mine at the same time as a kid through the summer holidays, Carried on doing pretty much everything and the skin stunk by the end. So as above, just ride on the turbo and try to wipe your arm down in side the plaster using a wet wipe and a ruler (seriously!). After a few weeks you may find that your arm muscles have wasted enough that you can slide the cast off to wipe it properly :shock:

Pokerface

Pross wrote:

After a few weeks you may find that your arm muscles have wasted enough that you can slide the cast off to wipe it properly :shock:

That's true. I had that happen to me when I broke my arm as a kid.

Was funny when I went to the doctor's to have it cut off - and said: don't bother. And then just slid it off.


It's not just the smell you have to worry about though. Depending on how much you sweat - it may get soggy and soft (the cast). Depends if it's the hard fibre-glass kind or the old-school plaster type.

It'll just slowly rot from the inside out.

dennisn

Drink more with your good arm. This has always worked for me.

Splottboy

Have you tried the Playboy channel?

I'm sure you'll only need 1 arm to get you're pulse rate up...

zanes

Pross wrote:

By the time your cast comes off it will stink anyway - I broke both mine at the same time as a kid through the summer holidays, Carried on doing pretty much everything and the skin stunk by the end. So as above, just ride on the turbo and try to wipe your arm down in side the plaster using a wet wipe and a ruler (seriously!). After a few weeks you may find that your arm muscles have wasted enough that you can slide the cast off to wipe it properly :shock:[/quote

This, +1. When I had my cast cut off as a kid my hand just literally flopped down, no control due to muscle wastage. Built up quickly again though (and I was ~10, so remove your collective minds from the gutter )

andrewgturnbull

Hi there.

Apart from turbo training I also got a waterproof cast cover:

http://www.xerosox.com/index.html

Then I could stick the broken arm on a float and went swimming with one arm.

Also after two or three weeks they usually remove the plaster slab cast and fit a much more lightweight fibreglass one for the remaining three or four weeks. Once the lightweight cast was on I found that running was no problem. In fact I ended up running my commute, as I couldn't ride or drive...

Cheers, Andy

edf242

This is a late post, but as this is the second hit for cycling training with a broken arm on google, I though I would share my own experiences of training with a broken arm with folks.

So the accident itself was pretty annoying, sprinting up a hill behind some friends my chain skipped of the big ring as I was running my gears crossed (lazy :oops:) and I came off. The only problem was I decided to put my left arm down in my friends back wheel. It stopped him dead and jammed my arm between the rear wheel and the seat stays. The bladed spokes cut one of my sensory nerves (fortunately not a motor nerve, so can move my hand but cant feel much on the back of it). It also broke my ulnar. Fortunately the doctors plated it which mean't I could have the cast off after 12 days.

So best advice I can give is to start training ASAP. I was pretty wiped out for about a week after the operation, but on day 13, I had a mate come over to my flat and put my bike up in the turbo (surprisingly hard to do one handed). Basically trained every day on there, small distances at first then more. Getting blood flowing helped a lot with the after effects of the anesthetic and helped the cuts etc heal faster. Other stuff that helped was have le tour on the TV at the time and having used them since, training dvds as the rides got very boring after a while.

At the time I was a triathlete and was told no running for 8 weeks (danger of falling, plus didn't really feel like it) and no swimming until cuts had healed up (stiches out etc). In the end swimming proved really useful to help rebuild muscle loss and atrophy, and also helped a bit with the pain, so I would recommend it to non triathletes too. First road ride was about 8 weeks after the accident. Legs felt fine but brain was very confused about moving whilst peddling, as had been on the turbo for so long.

So in summary

>Train ASAP on the turbo (I am told this also helps with fear after really bad accidents)
>Get some cycling related dvds to get you through the horror of hours on the turbo
>Do what the doctors say, chances are you wont feel like training out on the road (road buzz through a broken arm isn't pleasant), but if you do wait for the all clear, nobodies bones heal faster than anybody else's, so its not really worth the risk.
>For me, the end result was a 2:07 olympic distance triathlon in September after the accident in June (40 km TT was about an hour).

P.S. Afterthoughts, get a bag for showering with your cast on/if you have scars/cuts associated with the break. As for the smell, there isn't much you can do, cleaning it with a wipe and a ruler sounds like a pretty epic plan though.

jezzers1

hi , the first chance for a while to get out on the bike and get some training in in anticipation of a busy year, the sun was shining and left it till lunchtime to set off, clipped in 50 mtrs to the corner then bang off i came on the black ice, more concerned about the bike than myself, but now feelin the effects with a mega sore shoulder, so looks like the gym for me on the bikes cheers

ras_undy

Did the same on Ice as well today, everything was looking dry and clear, turned left into the shade and lost the bak wheel. Nice slide along my knee, which is now nice and bruised and swollen. Still last time I came off last year ended with right wrist with titamium pins in, so not too bad.

gsk82

could you stuff a thin piece of towel down the cast to soak up any sweat?

HadronCyclist

Broke my wrist pretty badly this year (lunate, scaphoid and capitate) was in a cast for 14 weeks. Got on the turbo the day after breaking it. The smell is atrocious, but its unavoidable. I was lucky, my fracture clinic replaced the cast every 4 weeks, so that they could better immobilise it as the swelling went down and the muscles atrophied. You can ask for waterproof lining for the cast when they give you a fibreglass one which means you can shower and swim with it on. There's really no problem if you get one of these! (I didn't though sadly)

After the cast is off +1 for swimming. Really helped nurse the muscles back. I finally got discharged this Friday (accident was in August!) from hand therapy and really have swimming to thank for the return of my range of motion and strength.

Wouldn't recommend stuffing anything down into the cast though. Saw some pretty horrific skin rashes in all my trips to the fracture clinic. When you put things down the cast, you move about the padding which is supposed to sit flush with the skin. When this moves, you get pressure sores and nasty rashes and things can start off. Just pop some talc down there if the itching gets too unbearable.

Keep us posted on how you are doing if you feel you want to share. I know how soul crushing an injury like this can be.

D