Coaches How much, how soon - returning from injury

[marie83]

One of my gymnasts has been out of the gym for 3 months due to a broken elbow.

I'd have liked to have had her in before now to do some conditioning, but mum preferred to keep her at home. She is a British Level 5 gymnast, so I'm hopeful that she will get back to the following skills:

Roundoff bhs on floor
Backward walkover on floor and beam
Cartwheel on beam
Kip
Handspring Flatback vault

She has been discharged from physio, but the elbow is still not straight.
She came in tonight and managed to do:

Handstands, Handstand forward roll, Cartwheels, and that was about it. We didn't do anything much on beam, just some jumps and leaps and all on the low beam with mats too! She didn't do bars or vault at all.

In your experience, how much should she be able to do and how soon? I don't fancy seeing her attempt to bhs or roundoff for that matter yet. The only reason I'm asking is that I've never dealt with anything like this before and I don't know if I'm holding her back unnecessarily. Do you think I've just got to make the judgement call myself? It was quite a nasty break, so I'm being very cautious, but I've seen gymnasts from other clubs come back from similar injuries so just wondered how to go about it.

I've got a conditioning plan for her which includes some strengthening exercises for her elbow, and I also told her not to do anything she wasn't comfortable doing or that hurt.

Not looking for any medical advice, just like I say, how much and how soon?!
Also any fun conditioning/skills she can be doing to keep her going?

Thanks!

 

[10.0]

Thats a tough question. Were her doctors aware of what level of gymnastics she does (well at least the type of skills?) It might not be a bad idea for her to go back for a little follow up and bring a list of skills and explain what they require her body to do and ask how soon she should be attempting them. It is hard without the medical knowledge to know.

I do think it is a bit concerning that she can't straighten it yet, obviously she needs further rehab for that. Also do you have trampolines? That might be a good way to work some skills with less pounding.

 

[Deleted member D3987]

she's got to get the elbow as near straight as she can. she needs to hang on the bar and rope climb. it will take about 10 weeks for the elbow to return to normal.

 

[marie83]

Thanks both of you for replying, I was convinced I had replied before, but apparently not!

Since posting, she has had a further operation to remove the pins from her elbow, and guess what?! Her elbow is now straight! In fact, we joke that it is straighter than her 'good' arm as she has hyper extension in that one!

I'm so pleased! She came back to training fully in May, and it has taken her until now to get almost to her previous skill level. She got her kip back a couple of weeks ago, but it still comes and goes. She lost a lot of strength during her time off so this is to be expected. She also found her confidence this weekend and went for her squat on catch. She has also started tumbling again and she has her bwo and cartwheel on beam. She just needs to get her fitness and flexibility back again now and she should be able to compete in October! Wooo!