Recognizing and Treating Common Sports Injuries

I'll bet you didn't know that injuries from pickleball cost $400 million per year in the US. I thought pickleball was a sedate game for old folks.

This article is mainly about injuries from football and other team sports. Still, we may see similar injuries from paddling. An overview of assessment and response is helpful.

https://reference.medscape.com/slid...scpref_etid7080820&uac=389934HN&impID=7080820

Now that I'm no longer working full time, I looked into pickleball as a possible activity to pursue. Before doing so, I read an article that said the sport was the leading activity for knee issues in older people. Having already endured numerous knee surgeries (two rebuilds and other clean outs) and a total replacement, I decided to stay away from the courts at all costs. Haven't regretting that decision yet.

That's all for now. Take care and until next time....be well.

snapper

The age old battle between staying active and getting hurt. I have had a lot of injuries over the years mostly from skiing, basketball and horse and mule wrecks. Pickleball is a good sport, but it requires some quick moves on a hard surface. Some old knees can't take it. I have resisted trying to the sport even after being a tennis and squash player for decades. I do not want to fall on the bolt in my hip that holds a femur rod in place. Too risky.,l

This is somewhat fortuitous timing as I'm having some slow private conversations right now with a few members, and more with nonmembers about canoeing related injuries. I don't know how much we can actually provide on the subject, certainly nothing that will make any medical journals, but I'm willing to share what I'm finding out, which is nothing startling, really. Any conclusions we come to would be more "Yup, canoeing is dangerous and injury is very possible." The more you do it, the more possible (certain?) it becomes.

Do we want to do it here under mainly "other sports injuries" or start another thread on canoeing injuries? Glenn can chime in on that.

What I'm interested in is what maladies have canoeists experienced that they can attribute directly to canoeing, even if it's just adding pain/injury to something initiated by another event/sport (like pickleball?). I wasn't planning on revealing names of those I have or will exchange privatly with, but they can chime in and identify themselves or not, so anonymity is preserved if wanted. Hey, I've done some dumb things and have no problems admitting at least most of it, but that doesn't mean everyone wants their own known. We can't draw curves with two or three data points, and most of the info is likely considered pretty subjective anyway. It can be warnings for other future paddlers reading here. I don't expect this will go very far, but hoping so.

ppine said:

The age old battle between staying active and getting hurt. I have had a lot of injuries over the years mostly from skiing, basketball and horse and mule wrecks. Pickleball is a good sport, but it requires some quick moves on a hard surface. Some old knees can't take it. I have resisted trying to the sport even after being a tennis and squash player for decades. I do not want to fall on the bolt in my hip that holds a femur rod in place. Too risky.,l

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I'm sorry ppine, but I have to ask, if I may, for a bit more detail on horse and mule wrecks. Is it just as it sounds - crashing your mule into another mule/inanimate object or is there another definition, hopefully grounded in lore from at least the 1930's. I do not ever recall hearing or reading those two words together, but must admit, saying mule wreck is kind of fun. If it's ok I might blend that into my vernacular, but I'll keep it east of the Mississippi.

Golf seems to be the ticket when it comes to "old people sports".

I'm only 31 but after I broke my leg and ankle about a year ago I still don't walk quite right. I can't imagine playing pickleball the way that I am now, id be falling over every few minutes and hurting myself again. I took up golf, partially because I always liked accuracy sports, I shot archery in competitions and clubs for a long time, and always liked shooting guns too, and darts, and horseshoes, and anything else like that.

It depends on what you mean by active though. Do you just want to get outside? Or do you actually want to break a sweat?

If you're talking specifically canoe related injuries, the only ones I've ever come across (didn't experience it myself) have to do with portaging. I was involved in college outdoor programs for many years and carrying a canoe was the biggest physical challenge many of my students encountered. There was one young person, along the Raquette Falls carry on a particularly slippery, muddy day, who took too big a step, slid and really twisted her knee. I also had another student, a college wrestler, also at Raquette Falls, who was fooling around with another kid, who dislocated his shoulder. We had to paddle him out and get him to the hospital at Saranac Lake to get his shoulder put back into place. After a trip to the ER, we got back on the water. He was now my "partner" for the rest of the trip as he couldn't paddle any longer; although he was a big help in the campsite.

That's all for now. Take care and until next time...be well.

snapper

Keeled over,
Equines are prey animals. They use flight as a response to danger. Mules tend to have less of it than horses but can still get overwhelmed and take off. I have had trouble with 3 foot rocks, bears, mountain lions, hornet nests, swamps and bogs, deep snow, and lots of other things. When they get scared they tend to buck hard and unload their riders. I broke my femur in the saddle after running into a mountain lion in Oregon. After a couple of jumps I was out of time with my mule Badger. I was coming down when he was going up and fractured my femur in 3 places near my hip. Then I hit the ground.

People that work with livestock get injured a lot.

ppine said:

Keeled over,
Equines are prey animals. They use flight as a response to danger. Mules tend to have less of it than horses but can still get overwhelmed and take off. I have had trouble with 3 foot rocks, bears, mountain lions, hornet nests, swamps and bogs, deep snow, and lots of other things. When they get scared they tend to buck hard and unload their riders. I broke my femur in the saddle after running into a mountain lion in Oregon. After a couple of jumps I was out of time with my mule Badger. I was coming down when he was going up and fractured my femur in 3 places near my hip. Then I hit the ground.

People that work with livestock get injured a lot.

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Literally cringing as I read this - any one if them would have killed me. I can't help but notice a connection to the task-oriented lifestyle of mythological dudes like Hercules, what with all of the challenges. Thank you for response - very impressive!

Nick Pending said:

What I'm interested in is what maladies have canoeists experienced that they can attribute directly to canoeing,

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I can list my injuries while paddling and I will include injuries on a canoe trip but not actually in the canoe at the time.

#1 - ring finger fracture (left hand)
#2 - index finger fracture (left hand)
#3 - thumb fracture (right hand)
#4 - rib fracture
#5 - rib fracture (different rib, different time)
#6 - toe fracture (left foot)
#7 - ankle dislocation(?) (right foot)
#8 - minor lacerations
#9 - minor burns

I have never been injured while canoeing. Maybe a little muscle and tendon soreness., Once I stubbed my toe on a tree branch while making a portage in the BWCA. 64 years of paddling.

I have had a couple of life threatening situations while rafting but few injuries. Banging into rocks a few times in bath tub rafts.

I've slipped and fallen a few times while on shore, and one of those I tore up the back of my hand pretty good, required an emergency room stop on the way home from the river that day. That's the only time I can remember in about 55 years of paddling that I truly hurt myself, but I could be forgetting something. I have been on trips with others where similar things have happened. Cuts and scrapes and rolled ankles, etc. I also know of boat damage enough to require walkouts, of which none of them were my own, but we're talking about bodies here.

I do have a stainless steel shoulder (total replacement) done 11 years ago now that I don't consider paddling related, but it could have been a factor. I was also a competition swimmer in high school and college, and I don't consider it swimming related either. I chalk it up to genetic osteoarthritis that was diagnosed when I was about 25 years old and that is now over 50 years ago. Of course the paddling and the swimming could have aggravated a base arthritic condition, but I don't consider either one or even both together the reason for the joint replacement. Joint wear was so bad that a bone graft had to be done to the scapula in order to have something to attach the prosthesis parts to. Hey, we heat our house with a wood stove, and I've swung a splitting maul a few times in my life too. But that's not paddling.

I have been corresponding with a couple of folks on paddling injuries and both of them say that use of the J stroke has caused them hand or wrist damage. Has anyone else reading here experienced anything like this? Or from the high brace, which could lead to shoulder dislocates? Or anything else you can think of. I've done a lot of J strokes in my time, and also lots of high braces. I've not had any issues from doing a J stroke despite thousands of miles of them. Either I'm not prone to that sort of damage, or thousands more miles of the goon stroke has saved me from it. No offense to Bill Mason, but I consider it the latter. It doesn't mean I'm right, just sort of a gut feeling.

Rolling a decked C-1 has caused dislocates for me on the river, not many, maybe three or four at the most, but I'm one of those lucky guys who can shrug the shoulder and it reduces automatically right away, and though it hurts for a bit after that, I'm fine paddling, and I don't remember ever getting out of the boat for that reason. I've not been on a trip where anyone else has had a dislocate problem. One day trip we came across another group with a paddler who'd been run into with the pointy bow of a friend's kayak and caused rib damage enough that he couldn't paddle. We carried the guy out in our canoe to a takeout so he could be taken to the hospital. He wasn't with our group. I have heard of this happening to others, too, but wasn't on the trip.

Anyone else with paddle-related problems?

Thanks.

When I first started canoe racing nearly 30 years ago, I quickly developed tendonitis in my wrists. So did one or two of my voyageur paddle partners. Watching other experienced racers, I noted that they did not flex their wrists at all during the stroke. After I adopted this style, I never had any wrist problems again. After several long 18 hour paddling days on the Yukon River 1000 mile race, at about day 3 of 6, “vitamin I” (Ibuprofen) works wonders for general aches and pains.

I can also give credit to canoeing in the opposite sense. After an unrelated slide down off from a camp roof while holding a 5-gallon bucket of paint, I messed up my shoulder rotator cuff. So painful that I was not able to raise my hand above chest height without a lot of hurt. I was due to race the Yukon again the next season six months later and needed to begin training well in advance, beginning now.

I went to see an orthopedic sports surgeon specialist who strongly recommended that he do the surgery that I had known other paddlers had gone through. When I asked him how long to hold my arm in a sling at my stomach, I already knew the answer was three months. No thanks. Alternatively, After X-rays and an MRI, he said he could pinpoint exactly where he could direct for me a cortisone injection that would help, at least for now.

There was immediate pain relief for several months as I trained both on and off the water. Then two months before the race I started to feel increasing twinges of pain again, so I went back to the Doc for another injection which he gave me with the caution that he still needed to do the surgery. I paddled the Yukon race with strength with no issues whatsoever and have been pain free ever since, now nearly 10 years later, having no pain at all while (or after) race pace paddling and doing strong bow rudder draws and posts in large voyageur and C4 canoes. Both in the Yukon and Adirondacks. Only rarely after a long working day outdoors cutting and stacking wood, I might tend to get a slight twinge in my shoulder as a reminder. I credit my days of canoe paddling and training for many races in the years since with 99.9% relief from any indication of past injury.

I have also had good results by doing physical therapy rather than surgery to recover from multiple rotator cuff injuries (they were from mountain bike and skiing accidents-not paddling). After seeing a good friend endure two unsuccessful surgeries for rotator cuff tears, I have decided that PT is often the better option, despite what the surgeon wants to do. It is also a lot cheaper and has a shorter recovery time, but still is about 6 months.