OH SHOOT! These moments when we wished we could turn the clock back a bit...

[FritsMB Mansvelt Beck]

O sh..... moments resulting in injuries that I can still remember because they took a long time to recover from or resulted in permanent  weaknesses? Let’s see. 

 

A severely twisted left ankle from a biking accident in my teens, probably aggravated by playing field hockey again too soon. Result, permanent weakness. 

 

A fibula that popped out at the knee joint when I got up from a cross legged position (think twisting squats) after having worked under my car in winter. Two weeks on crutches the first time it happened. Nowadays, I know how to protect it and it will take only a couple of days of hobbling around after it happens. 

 

A severely injured left shoulder from a biking fall that was a pure accident. My wife and two daughters had gone ahead with the car to Hanover NH (from just North of Boston). I was following on my racing bike and cruising along at 50 km/hr on a long down hill (sunny spring day, no wind, perfect asphalt, singing a song). My front wheel hit the one and only (1â€) pebble that had decided to be there just for me. I went flying over the handle bars on my head (good helmet) and left shoulder which took the main impact. Dislocated? Maybe. It must have popped back, though, because I still could move my arm a bit. I must have looked terrible (torn bike shirt, bloody shoulder from road burn, white face), judging by the looks of the people in the diner where I stopped half an hour later to have a cup of coffee. Anyhow, I managed the remaining 140 km (I can still visualize sections of that ride; pain apparently does that to your memory). And spent a lot of years getting my shoulder strength and mobility back. With F1, I have noticed that there is still a distinct difference in ROM between left and right shoulder, for example with windmills. In a handstand I can open my right shoulder, but not (yet) my left. My shoulder dislocates look very strange. But otherwise I am fine. Could have been much worse.

 

A right thumb that dislocated with a downhill skiing fall. Just being stupid and trying to keep up with a colleague who later (of course) told me that he had been a ski instructor. No more finger push ups.

 

Six years ago, the loss of the use of one of my (biceps) muscles in my right arm with a climbing accident. I had injured (one of) my right biceps lifting a heavy weight (a boat) while cold. But instead of giving it time to heal, I kept climbing. And then on a climbing trip (far from any hospital) while climbing down a fixed rope hand over hand, I felt a sharp pain and that was it. No more one arm chins. Surprisingly, I am still quite strong in my right arm.

 

With hind sight, though, the worst that I did to my body was joining the long slow distance craze in the eighties. All those miles (up to 50 miles a week) of taking short strides on hard pavement made me stiff like a plank and caused all sorts of joint and tendon problems that I have now finally recovered from. 

[Mikkel Ravn]

Ouch, that's a bunch of cringe-inducing posts Well done for persevering, folks!

 

My ten cents: This site and the associated materials is a goldmine for people with past injuries, and it is also incomprehensibly cheap in comparison to seeking physiotherapy etc. For 320 dollars I am getting +6 hours/week of mobility, rehab, prehab and strength, for what appears to be at least the next three years (but more likely four to five). At 6hrs x 52 weeks x 3 years, that amounts to at least 936 hours of training. If I'd seen a physiotherapist, I'd have gotten 9 hours instead, which wouldn't have changed anything.

[Joshua Naterman]

Indeed. With a little guidance from knowledgeable people, and a little patience on our part, we are often our own best healthcare provider.

[Rikke Olsen]

Probably when I was around 16-17, and thought it an absolutely brilliant idea to monkey climb (I don't know what it's called...) down a fire escape stair case; i.e. I was descending hanging in my arms underneath the stairs.

First time was from 3rd upper step or so. No probs - went fine. Let's go from the top step!

 

Climb the stairs normally, over the rail, one hand onto the top step, second... -WHOOSH! Hands slips and I must admit I wasn't strong enough to hang from one arm... down I go, landing in a seating position with a pretty gnarly pain in my hand/wrist, which I'd used to take some of the fall.

 

Went to get a x-ray - cracked wrist bone. I was lucky that's all that happened, really. It was probably a 3 meter fall onto concrete. Could have broken pretty much anything else.

 

While waiting for my mom to pick me up, a nice, young dude walked by, asked me what was wrong; if I was hurt. Told him that yeah, it hurt pretty badly. He then asked me if I would like him to ask God to heal it? (I'm not religious, but I took his offer - couldn't hurt.)
Sadly, I had to tell him I felt no different after the healing. He wished me good luck and that I'd get better

 

That was probably one of my stupidest moments in life. But I consider myself lucky, nonetheless.

[Erik Sjolin]

Let's see...the one that immediately comes to mind is practicing my handstands with a VERY poor shoulder position and messing up my rotator cuff in one shoulder and then not letting it rest (hurt for over a year, set my strength training back a lot).

 

Not a whole lot of immediate injuries, it's the little ones I refuse to acknowledge and make worse that seem to make up my list.

[David Creekmore]

Mine was just this past January.

I have a lot of work capacity, especially for 45 and hold the student record at the trapeze school for most swings in a two hour period.  It's a difficult record to break because you need an empty class, and they rarely are. Most classes are 8-12 swings.  

Last January I got 33 with dowel grips.  (My previous record was 24 with no grips before the blood blisters on my hand exploded.)

But I did mostly layouts, which was incredibly stupid for my shoulders, because you swing back hard, pivoting at the shoulder and then snap forward into the break.  

I'm pretty lucky actually, I only have minor damage.  My bursas on both sides blew up like balloons and after a sports ortho visit,  I got cortisone  in both, loads of PT, and a month off.  I'm still very tender and vulnerable in the joint, and am ultra-careful about overworking the joint.  Now, both sides snap, crackle and pop like a drum band.  

[Seabird]

Went to karate late one day. Went in to working out without warming up. Did a high kick. Guys across the room say it sounded like jeans tearing. Was on the floor. But its ok, just need to walk it off. Sparring later. Go to make a lowish kick at the other guy. 

 

Years later, I still feel pain when I sit on my hamstring for an extended period. 

[Eric Baum]

My moment was when I was going down a hill in my bike. I was fast, like 40+km/h, and then I hit a rock in the middle of the road that I haven't seen. The bike starts shaking and I lost control and then flipped.

 

I hit the ground 3 times before I stopped rolling, first with the head, then with the back of the shoulder and then with the hip. I stopped like 10 meters in front of where the bike stopped.

 

Results: I cracked the side of my helmet ( glad it was not my skull ), I had a broken clavicle that split in 3 separate parts and a hip that hurted for 2~3 months because of the impact, plus a lot of skin that I left over the road.

 

Today is exactly 2 years since the surgery to rebuild my clavicle.

[Mikkel Ravn]

Think I had another one of those moments yesterday, when I foolishly participated in an alcohol-fueled armwrestling match, with a friend 15 kilos heavier than me. I won the match (of course > ), but my left elbow immediately felt pretty screwed... Think I made my old golfer's elbow flare up badly, right now it's just fingers crossed that it'll pass quickly. Shoot!

[Toni Laukkavaara]

3 months ago: i did a handstand pushups with my stomach facing the wall, i barely made the last rep then my muscles just gave up and i hit my knee on the heater. Couldn't walk properly for 2 weeks

 

7 years ago: i did sideflip and i ended up breaking my palm, overall 4 broken bones.

 

1 year ago: i trained planche with retracted shoulders -> rotator cuff problems (its fine now tho)

 

10 years ago: ate a peanut, even tough i knew i was allergic to them XD, my neck swoll up and i had to go to the emergency #yolo

 

1,5 years ago: cauliflower ear

[Keilani Gutierrez]

that #yolo bit made me laugh. 

 

how exactly do you get the Cauliflower ear is what i've wondered? pressure on the ear? or pressure that steam rolls over the ear from front to back and breaks something within the ear?

[Karl-Erik Karlsen]

Too many, but one that comes to mind for some reason. Very hung over at a lake with friends, saw a dive board and decided to do a backflip off it. When I came up every one had "oh shit" faces and looked panicked. They told me they thought I had smashed my head against the rocks protruding underneath the board just before I went into the dark water. I never saw the rocks, but they were apparently the weird thing I felt brush through my hair as I rotated.

I am very grateful to this very day.

[GoldenEagle]

All of my moments have ended with some scar that is located in my left hand, over my right kneecap, in my forehead, in the right side of my chest, all over my shins, or crossing the external carotid artery on the right side of my neck.

[Jon Douglas]

Had my hair dyed for a costume by a friend back at college. She was towelling off my hair when a loop of towel caught on the bells of two bars through my right eyebrow. Numb feeling in eyebrow, just enough time for that 'Oh shoot!' feeling, then blood.

 

I have plenty of scars, have gotten into innumerable scraps and scrapes in my life, have competed full contact multiple times, years of assorted martial arts, etc etc, and my most immediately visible scars are from GETTING MY HAIR DYED.

 

Man, that's no sort of story at all >.<

[Toni Laukkavaara]

that #yolo bit made me laugh. 

 

how exactly do you get the Cauliflower ear is what i've wondered? pressure on the ear? or pressure that steam rolls over the ear from front to back and breaks something within the ear?

yeah pressure on the ear, it happened while wrestling