Working out around injury . . .

[mesomorphin']

I broke a couple of fingers yesterday in a crush injury, and the middle and ring finger of one hand are going to be in splints for 3-6 weeks or longer. For the time being, I really can't put any stress on the middle finger because the tendon to this fingertip is attached to a bone fragment that was severed from the rest of the bone, and I'll have no ability to move or straighten my fingertip unless the bone fragment heals in the correct position. The problem is: I normally wrap my hands around the bar and squeeze pretty hard on many exercises (curl movements, rowing movements, chins, shrugs, deadlifts, stiff legged deadlifts, chinups, even military presses, and to some extent front and lateral raises), especially as the loads go up.

Does it follow that I have to lay off most upper body work (and deads) for the duration? Tell me it ain't so -- 6 DAYS would seem like an eternity. Anybody have any experience with this and know of a safe way to get any kind of a decent workout without much of a left hand grip? Appreciate your thoughts....

 

[TriZZle305]

you can still benchpress cuz a guy i know bencpresses with his hands open... i dont know why? it looks kindof dangerous but hes never dropped the bar on himself.... but if youre gonna try it go with lower weight than usual.... thats about the only thing

 

[KataMaStEr]

Make sure you have a spotter with a quick reaction time if you going to try what TriZZle305 said, does not sound too bad.

 

[kuso]

First up....don`t do anything at all to re-injure your fingers!!!!

I would think you`d be safer using the machines than free weights as you don`t need to balance them at all.

You may also want to look at some lifting hooks for pulling movements.

 

[seyone]

I agree with kuso about using machines. If you use say hammer strength bench press you won'thave to balance the weight and you can probably do the presses open handed. I would think that you would have to avoid any pulling movement. can't imagine how you would do that without closing your hands.

 

[Fade]

You might end up accidentally pulling that tendon just from the strain of lifting. I'd be very carefull. It would suck screwing up the range of motion of your finger because you didn't want to layoff that long.

 

[Neil]

Six days isn't that long, your body will thank you for it. I would scrap the lifting that involves the fingers until they are better.

 

[ponyboy]

Having recovered from many an injury, I would agree with not pushing it and possibly making it worse. I think though, you are talking about six weeks, not days, which would be an eternity to many of us.

My idea would be to shift your training focus and maybe go on a six week cut (even if you don't really want to). Use much lighter weights to not strain your systems and put pressure where it shouldn't be. Unless you have a spotter I don't agree with using open hands, but machines would be okay. You can do Hammer Strength with open hands as well, as was said before.

The focus during an injury is normally to MAINTAIN what you have until your body is ready to improve again. Even though it isn't a major injury, it is enough to prevent hardcore training.

 

[mesomorphin']

Thanks for the comments, everyone. I think I will have to spend more time on machines for a while and play around with rep scheme and tempo to keep things challenging anywhere I have to reduce loads.

 

[seyone]

good luck, let us know how it works out.

 

[TJohn]

Oh my gosh Meso !! what the hell happened !! Sorry I missed your thread. 6 days is not enough, you've got to let your bones and tendons heal up. A few weeks to a month or more is more like it. Don't jeapardize the future of you fitness.

Get better soon,
TJ

 

[mesomorphin']

Not to worry,TJohn: I was just saying that 6 days without working out would feel like an eternity, so 6 weeks would be totally beyond comprehension!
The ER folks told me that the splints would stay on at least 3 weeks and probably more like 6 weeks for the more severely injured finger. However, I think the decision ultimately will rest with the orthopedic hand specialist I see next Thursday. He will take a look at the X-rays, decide if surgery is necessary, see if the key bone fragments are currently in the right place and/or if any rebreaking is required, etc. I feel like I'm doing pretty well, so maybe I'll get good news from him. Meantime I'm proceding--carefully --with machine exercises and some other things I can do open-handed. (I suspect bicep work--even on a machine--will prove trickiest for me, but I haven't tried that yet.)

While it may not exactly be workouts as usual, I'm sure I can come up with a number of workout options that will not be a complete waste of time, so I think this is going to be more tolerable than my initial fears.

 

[DWB]

Maybe just the perfect time to do some heavy priority work on your lower body and perhaps, some core strength work.

Even if you took a month off from your normal level of intensity with upper body work, I wouldn't worry.
With your level of experience and the fact that you'll be able to fully utilize the muscle memory phenomenon, you'll bounce back bigger, and badder than ever.

Often a forced break, such as this, can turn into something quite remarkable when you hit the weights again.

Did ya faint when the digits got crushed?

I normally do when I get these sort of injuries. Much to everyones merriment.

 

[Mudge]

Light weights, slow reps.

 

[BPB]

Meso, what's up? Are we getting a bit careless in our old age?
I'd have to agree with everyone else: machine exercises, pushing movements and a good time to focus on legs and abs. I would imagine that most back and bi work will be on hold for a while. Sorry to hear about the injury. I'm just now getting back to legs after my knee surgery ...so I feel your pain.

BPB

 

[mesomorphin']

Thanks for throwing my age in my face, BPB! I'll conceed that I'm pretty careless in my decrepitude. Some (Mrs. Meso) might cast the blame on galloping senility, but the truth is I've ALWAYS had reckless moments. Probably an ADD thing. When my Alzheimer's kicks in full bore, it should really be something to behold!

Last Friday, I tried several machine and cable exercises for back and shoulders (weird combination for me, due to disrupted week). It was actually OK. Biceps will be trickier, I think, but I've got a couple of more days before that rolls around.

Glad to hear your knee is coming along to the point where you can get back to leg workouts. Don't go crazy right away, or you may find yourself back under the knife before you know it.

 

[mesomorphin']

Originally posted by DWB

Did ya faint when the digits got crushed?

I normally do when I get these sort of injuries. Much to everyones merriment.

Hey, DWB! Somehow missed your post earlier. How are things down under?

No fainting. Although it hurt some, it really didn't feel any worse than lots of injuries that aren'[t particularly bad. When it happened, the building health unit wasn't open yet, so I showered, cleaned up blood traces, disinfected the shower, got dressed and dumped the biohazard bag while waiting for the health unit to open. I was OK until I got to the health unit, took a closer look at the wound during a more thorough cleaning than I had been willing to perform on myself. I admit I got a little light-headed when the nurse pulled this weird little finger sock over the worst finger before sending me off to the emergency room. With all the gauze they used to stop the blood, she couldn't get the thing on as far as she wanted, but she was persistent and kept pushing and pushing against the broken finger, until the doctor said "You're killing him. Its on far enough. " By that time I was breathing heavily and looking a little green. Pretty embarassing. (I had a similar experience one time when I cut a finger into the bone with a skill saw, severing an artery and some nerves. The pain was not that great then either, but I got pretty dizzy sitting in an ER triage room. Must be some kind of strss reaction. Really brings out the Florence Nightingale in ER personnel, too. They say, "Its not that bad," which sounds reassuring but really means, "don't be such a baby!"