Injury prevention and taking time off to heal

[snap7times]

Playing hurt can lead to more serious injuries and take yourself out of this fun sport for even longer. I had a wrist injury that had been hampering me on a daily basis for weeks before the Oregon Championships. I decided to try to play since I knew I had a very realistic chance to place in the top 3. After the first round, it looked like I could run away with it, but only one person knew that I might not even finish the tournament, myself, because my wrist pain had now gone up to my forearm and upper arm and I was only surviving because of the huge bottle of ibprofen in Chase's car. During the last few holes of the 2nd round, I knew there was no way I would survive another round as my arm was panging all over with pain and I could feel my body trying to find other muscle groups to take over to reduce the pain in my wrist. This meant muscle groups that usually were dormant in disc golf and that equals soreness, tightness, and maybe even actual injuries to those muscle groups.

I swallowed the tough pill and told everyone in my card on the last hole that I would not return for the 3rd round. When I woke up Sunday, OMG, my neck, my lats, my shoulder and my original wrist pain were just welcoming me into the 30's.
Since then, I have had a professional massage on my right side, it helped with the muscle tightness that occured from trying to play around the wrist. But a week later, my wrist still hurts like early onset of carpal's.
Like the real man, I have vowed to take at least 3-4 weeks off disc golf and bought 2 different wrist braces, one that totally isolates the wrist and hand from movement and one that offers medium stability. Cost me $25 for both and well worth it if it helps me heal properly and quickly. $ invested in your body is never a waste of money.

I already wear pearl izumi arm sleeves to maximize prevention of arm injuries and it has worked when I warm up properly and stretch often. I also wear ankle brace sleeves that offer minimal protection for ankle injuries in the winter due to cold weather effects on the body.

The point I am making is that, we need to take the proactive approach in making sure that possible injuries are minimized by wearing the appropriate gear, warming up, stretching and when we do get hurt, we take the correct approach to giving our bodies what it needs to heal so we can return to the game when appropriate; regardless of how big the pill is that we must swallow.

Cold weather = more injuries; are you proactive, or an injury waiting to happen? Be smart this winter...

Mr. Snap; PE and Health teacher at the Washington School for the Deaf

[Flash]

Well said Nathan and I am sorry you had the injury that forced your withdraw. You had a good year this year and your rating has steadily climbed. Take the time to heal properly and then get back in the game.

[COV45]

At 40 I could feel the changes, playing sports in all of my years, I knew if I wanted to keep throwing every week all year round, I'd need to take the same precautions. It wasn't 'til after I got tennis elbow from throwing sidearms, I bought one of these and I love it. I paid $200 for mine two years ago, I'm sure they've come down in price by now and can find them on Ebay or Amazon.

http://www.therhythmtouch.com/

[Burge]

I've had to recover from two different wrist injuries during my years of disc golfing -- good braces are definitely a wise investment. The best thing I've found for recovering, and improving, strength and flexibility is a Dyna-Flex. It's been far more valuable then the money I spent on a brace because it helps prevent injuries through conditioning and has greatly improved my grip strength and control. You can find 'em at REI or online for around $20. This thing is an awesome fingertip-to-shoulder workout. I went with the blue 'heavy' one, which can produce something like 40 ft/lbs of torque, but there's a red version that's half as powerful.

[Joshua Olmsted]

You can take solace in knowing that overplaying-based injuries are not isolated to age, when I was 17 I injured my rotator cuff mostly through overplaying. I ended up taking 4 months off to help recover and ever since I've been much, much more mindful of my personal limits on arm strain.