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damaged wrist or collarbone ?


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I think that while we have a few things in common we are built differently and we fall differently. I have spent a lifetime protecting my head at all cost. I wear a helmet and have crashed many times on asphalt at high speed. I have never put a single scratch on my helmet. All the helmet has done so far is make my head heavier and stress my neck muscles during a crash. I still wear my helmet because I protect my head at all cost. 
People respond differently. People have different weaknesses and as a result get hurt differently. I personally have a set of the weakest looking ankles around. According to the US Navy, I have a size 13 foot and a size 9 ankle. The numbers should match but they don’t. With such under sized ankles I would expect them to be a weak spot but they haven’t been. I don’t even know what a sprained ankle feels like. People are just different.
My brother is much more skilled at riding dirt bikes, motorcycles, etc. Unfortunately he always lands on his head and breaks shoulders.........I just can’t relate. :confused1:  
 

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9 hours ago, bnapalm said:

Instinctively, I put my left hand behind me to break the fall — not something you should do, but it was not a conscious decision — and you can see the aftermath in the image. 

I was only wearing gloves with abrasion-protective "sliders", but without wrist guards. Had I had wrist guards, I would probably have been fine. So yes, while normally you would fall off a unicycle at speed "superman" style and/or on your knees, it is still very possible to land badly on your wrists. Only have the cast off for 2 weeks now, working with physiotherapist to regain movement, and I'm never riding without wristguards again. :thumbup:

This is a textbook usage for wrist guards, which are designed for straight on vertical impacts as seen in skateboarding. Unfortunately it’s likely 1% of EUC falls. 

Ive had a cutout while doing a pendulum and falling backwards. Prob mentioned this before but water got in the circuit and it was constantly trying to turn off and on and the pendulum has a moment in the transition where you’re going 0mph and can actually power the wheel off, which happened.

Fell on my bent elbows and kept my head up(as if doing a reverse plank) Never reached my hands back. I have zero training with falls or parkour, just fast as shit reaction time and a strong core. I’ve never trained myself to not reach my hands out in front to stop a fall, but yet in all my crashes I’ve never done that, always tucked and rolled. I wonder if doing so many sprinting block starts is the reason; my body is comfortable “falling” and doesn’t panic and reach the arms out to stop a fall. 
 

@Marty Backe snow is the reason why the falls are different in snowboarding/skiing and EUC. The snow doesn’t let you slide, so you have direct impacts that hyperextend wrists. With a typical EUC fall, your horizontal velocity creates a fall in which sliders are more beneficial then something that prevents your wrists from bending. (Luckily wrist guards are literally giant sliders)

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On 9/27/2020 at 11:41 AM, Ronin Ryder said:

While watching a video from speedyfeet on the v11 he mentioned in a comment that he never wears wrist guards due to the damage (transfer of force)  they cause to the collarbone. He makes a point. So I wonder what the community here thinks about it. 

Basically even Knox palm sliders with the fancy scaphoid protection system fall prey to this if you fall with outstretched arms. The best way to prevent it is to learn how to roll. But my theory is learning to roll will come naturally once you unlearn how to reach your hands out, which can be done by becoming comfortable falling forward without panicking. Falling sprint starts, running while towing a heavy sled etc. I don’t believe parkour does any benefit to EUC falls by way of learning and perfecting technique, but rather by way of teaching you to become comfortable falling, which in turn unlearns outstretching the arms and creates a natural roll. The controlled, methodical techniques you learn can’t be applied in such instant fashion as from falling unpredictably from an EUC.  

Edited by Darrell Wesh
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15 hours ago, bnapalm said:

I'd like to present my experience to the contrary. See the 2 month old image below for aftermath of my low-speed EUC crash (computer imaging of bone, SFW) :

https://imgur.com/a/hDeZt3W

I hope someone had a good look through that CT scan series 2 months ago & followed up to make sure the lunate bone didn’t semi-dislocate out of its spot in the radius. 

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19 hours ago, Mike Sacristan said:

This brings me back to the whole "falling sucks" thing.
Yesterday I was riding down a rocky hill and a stump appeared out of nowhere. I jumped off the wheel.. the pedal hit me in the back of the leg.

Feels amazing man... feels amazing. The wheel was ok though.

In my head, I can hear you muttering that phrase :lol:

Pedal hits always suck, and no matter how experienced you are, the pedal will still get you every once in awhile :crying:

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10 hours ago, Darrell Wesh said:

Basically even Knox palm sliders with the fancy scaphoid protection system fall prey to this if you fall with outstretched arms. The best way to prevent it is to learn how to roll. But my theory is learning to roll will come naturally once you unlearn how to reach your hands out, which can be done by becoming comfortable falling forward without panicking. Falling sprint starts, running while towing a heavy sled etc. I don’t believe parkour does any benefit to EUC falls by way of learning and perfecting technique, but rather by way of teaching you to become comfortable falling, which in turn unlearns outstretching the arms and creates a natural roll. The controlled, methodical techniques you learn can’t be applied in such instant fashion as from falling unpredictably from an EUC.  

I've had running type falls where the roll (which I have not perfected) would seem natural and helpful. But I've also had falls which are more rotational which do not lend themselves to any kind of fall. I think this happens in particular when you hit something or lose balance where your body is rotated to the side and that's how you fall.

The rotational falls seem more instantaneous (one second you're riding, the next you are solidly hitting the ground). I broke my shoulder on one of those type falls.

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1 hour ago, Marty Backe said:

Pedal hits always suck, and no matter how experienced you are, the pedal will still get you every once in awhile :crying:

On the topic of pedals....apparently people have been using skate wax on the bottom of their pedals. You know, the wax they use to put on curbs and rails so skateboards can grind across them seemingly frictionlessly .

Yea, I had no idea that was a thing either. But apparently it helps a ton with not pedal scraping. Of course, if you clip a pedal because you’re too wide, and it catapults you off then it won’t be any help 😄

Edited by Darrell Wesh
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1 hour ago, Marty Backe said:

think this happens in particular when you hit something or lose balance where your body is rotated to the side and that's how you fall.

Seems like you’d be going at slower speeds to sustain this type of fall. Or off road. Slow speeds paradoxically seems to create more impact then high speeds because of less slide. Heard of a lot of low speed sprains and break type injuries and more so just bad abrasion with high speed.

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I'm glad I use wrist guards daily...after several falls without them, or with bad wrist guards. 

I say that right now... after my son (skateboarding) just broke his collar bone in 4 places and had to have surgery. Now he has metal rods/screws in his collar bones.

 

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19 hours ago, Marty Backe said:

In my head, I can hear you muttering that phrase :lol:

Pedal hits always suck, and no matter how experienced you are, the pedal will still get you every once in awhile :crying:

Haha yeah and I hate it when the other rider asks if i'm ok.
Then I mutter even more.

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  • 5 weeks later...

Collar bones, IMHO, acts like a natural "fuse" that breaks easily to save other parts of the upper body from breaking . It's a common mountainbiking  injury with OTB (over-the handlebar) crashes where the hands break the fall. All that impact energy goes straight to the collar bone and breaks it. From what I know, you wear a shoulder sling for about a week so it heals properly and it does so quiet fast. I know a good number of riders who's gone thru it more than once.  

 I've had a good number of OTB's myself but (knock on wood) never broke anything.  Bone density also plays a big factor in injury prevention. Harder bones don't break easy. I reckon, I hit the heavy bag regularly on my workouts and that may have helped me but who knows....

I'll vouch wearing a wrist guard, tho. I did sprain my wrist once  on a skateboard mishap. 

Edited by Surfling
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I think wrist guards are essential, so to continue to enjoy riding when it gets cold I wear stretchy woolen gloves that fit over my wrist guards, works, but not very satisfactory.  I did find a glove online that incorporates wrist protection and sliders, don't recall the brand name but they looked ideal for our use. You can get them in Europe, Australia or NZ, but they would not sell to me at a USA address, I'm guessing they either don't have sufficient production yet, or more likely, are attempting to find/interest a US based distributor...

Has anyone been able to get this type of glove in the USA?

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