Fractured finger following dislocation

[Gavin Strelitz]

Right,

I was just about to start my next SSC when I managed to fracture my middle joint of my ring finger on my left hand. It was dislocated first, then I popped it back in, and the doctor/x-rays have confirmed the fracture. I've been told to leave it alone for 3-4 weeks minimum.

Any suggestions on how to train around this and/or not lose any strength gains I've made?

[Joshua Naterman]

3-4 weeks isn't enough time to lose any maximal strength, and your endurance will be back within 4-5 weeks of resuming training, so don't worry! Stick with what doesn't bother it for the moment. I'd imagine that dips could still be done, and perhaps false grip pull ups on a straight bar. I wouldn't try regular pulls.

In the meantime, as Coach says, focus on your core and lower body(if you care about that)! You'll have extra healing capacity since you won't be working your upper body as hard for the next month, so you might be able to do a lot with your core and legs!

[Blairbob]

Did that back in the end of 2008. I was still able to workout with but just had to workout around it since whenever the finger touched anything was generally followed by a string of obscenities. Mine was the pinky and ring finger but being that yours is the ring finger it's gonna be more difficult.

You'll have to palm most stuff and I don't remember doing much on floor with it when it was recovering. It sort of depends how much control of your ring finger you have to make sure you don't grip with it.

[gymgreg]

When I was bouldering people had finger injuries all the time.

And the saying was that it takes approximately half the time of your injury-time to regain your normal strength level.

But that is if you don't workout during your injury time.

Back in March I tore the capsular in my right thumb joint which took 3-4 weeks to heal.

Luckily I was still able to do pull ups using only the fingers, but the cast limited my movements immensely.

Still I found a lot of workarounds and actually was able to progress during that time.

Do stuff using wrists/palm (like Blairbob said) or forearms. I am sure you can do wrist pull-ups, ring body rows , ring flyes , ring triceps extensions this way. Same goes for rubber band or tube work.

Try to work on muscular imbalances (if you have any). Regard it as a chance to progress in areas you previously did not consider as important.

[Gavin Strelitz]

Thanks guys, plenty to think about there.

Just annoyed because my rings arrive any day now...