I saw that you experienced a boxer’s fracture sometime during or before 2012 and were training again after about a week. Could you regale us with the story? How severe was it? What was the angulation, if any? How did you sustain it? Do you have any x ray images or similar examples? Did you or do you have any lasting deformity?
IDMB,
Thanks for the post. I’m pretty sure this was in 2008 or 2009 and my fist, which was moving at high velocity- made contact with a hard, stationary object that failed to yield to my poorly executed “punch”.
The fractures of my 4th and 5th metacarpals were mildly angulated, but I cannot recall the specific magnitude. I consulted a hand surgeon who confirmed I did not need surgery. I don’t have any imaging, as this was > 10 years ago and I have no deformity or impairment.
-Jordan
Thanks for the reply. I have been doing that for many years with what I now know is poor form and the hard stationary object finally beat me.
Were your knuckles sunken at all immediately after you did it? Did they perform a closed reduction? I am curious if the deadlifts/training may have over time helped remodel the bone back to its natural alignment as a result of the diectional load and resulting orientation of stress applied to the bone.
So, the timeline was:
Day 0: Injury
Day maybe 7ish?: placed in splint
Day 14: removed splint and began training
Day 49ish: full strength, unmodified lifting
And, what was the return to training like? A week with just the bar, followed by a gradual ramp up over five weeks?
Hoping I can get back to training sometime soon.
I don’t remember the exact deformity immediately after it happened, but no, there was no reduction or manipulation performed that I can remember.
I do remember that I was placed in a splint 2 days after the incident and I benched and deadlifted that day with straps. I can’t say for certain how long I wore the splint, but I don’t think there was anything training-related that hurt or helped the recovery outside of the systemic effects of exercise in general.
You deadlifted while in the splint? That had to be interesting.
I did. I used straps. It was fine.
Good to know it turned out fine. Difficult to find examples of people who lifted relatively soon after this injury. As I have looked into the literature more, I am finding immediate mobilization is often recommended, at least in EU anyway.
Thanks for the response! Time to get back to training!