Women Can a gymnast be successful after gymnast wrist

[mllea2]

My daughter was diagnosed with gymnast wrist. Is this the end of her gymnast career? She is young, only 8. She is training level 7. Looking past the fact that this will take her out of training for 2-3 months, I fear she will not be able to sustain a gymnastics career based on things I have read on this group. It seems once they have this injury, they are more likely to get it again. My heart is broken for my daughter because she loves this sport so much. Anyone have any experience or advice? Am I being to pessimistic about this? Is there a realistic way she could still be a competitive gymnast, training for elite with this type of injury? TIA

 

[Aussie_coach]

Gymnasts wrist does not mean she can’t be a successful gymnast, and having it once does mean it will continue to happen.

The condition usually stems from one of the following areas -
1. Not enough strength in the wrists, forearms, hands etc
2. Poor technique on skills - ie doing lots of handstands and back handsprings with turned out hands.
3. Unbalanced training - ie doing too many skills, repetitions, on the hands in a row.
4. Growth issues or a big jump in training hours or training intensity.

Sure, some kids are more prone to it than others, but it still generally takes one of the issues above to trigger it. The big thing about these issues is that they are generally fixable, treatable, changeable. If the physio and coaches can identify why it has happened, they can take steps to reduce the chances of it happening again in the future.

When you say it will take her out of training for 2-3 months, does that mean she won’t be training at all? If we have a child with such an injury they would still be training. There is still so much they can do - conditioning, flexibility, active flex, leaps, jumps, turns, dance, aerials, saltos, Twisting, Work in spotting belts, vault drills, etc etc.

That way they don’t lose all the strength, flexibility and skills they have worked so hard to attain and it makes them less prone to reinjury. Taking a big break from training will increase the chances of injury upon return.

Injury does not have to mean a delay in development. Often when we have a kid with an injury it does the total opposite and allows them to make huge strides in their gymnastics development, because they will be able to focus a lot on particular skills and spend more time developing them, as they can’t do other things.

 

[mllea2]

Thank you for your reply. She has had a rough year in terms of injuries and was on modified training for most of the year and now this diagnosis. It’s so frustrating.

 

[Cmumgym]

Some of our gymnasts use tiger paws to help with wrist injuries and they still train aswell as conditioning strength and flex. As long as they keep their bodies in condition most skills are muscle memory and come back if their bodies are ready

 

[rls_TX]

My daughter had gymnast wrist in August of 2016. She missed about 8 weeks of her level 4 season, but did modified training and was still able to compete as soon as she was cleared. She's now training level 9/10. She uses a tiger paw like wrist brace on vault and floor that she found works better than tiger paws for her, at the recommendation of her coach. Occasionally, she starts to feel some wrist pain, but knows when to give her wrists a little rest. We haven't had any major recurrences in the past almost 3 years that necessitated her missing any meets or significant training time. She also occasionally gets an orthopedic massage for her knee. The masseuse started working on her wrists as well and that has helped. Just be on the lookout when she hits growth spurts. That's typically when you need to be most careful.

 

[Seeker]

My daughter had it as a L8/12yrs old. She’s a L10 now and no longer has any issues. She was casted for 5 weeks and then did therapy for 6 weeks. She had her wrist adjusted by a chiropractor every few weeks for about 3 years to keep things in check. Once she stopped growing, she hasn’t had any further issues.

 

[Deleted member 18037]

My daughter had wrist issues on one wrist back in Level 4, almost 4 years ago. She has worn tiger paws (both wrists) ever since. She wears them for beam, floor and vault. No wrist issues since, currently L8, working some 9 skills. No problems since.

If I had it to do over again. I would of had her in tiger paws as soon as she started level 4. JMO, in hindsight wrists are not meant for the kind of pounding gymnastics puts on them. No shame in supports.