Discussion Topic

Ouch! It will get better. I messed up some ribs earlier (badly bruised or cracked) early in the year and can still feel twinges nearly 3 months later. It happened so fast and I was walking. I imagine off a bike it was really bad :-(

Your recovery is highly dependent on your attitude and work ethic. People age when they fail to do what is necessary to recover.

You will heal more slowly than previous decades. However, you can jump back into climbing again. You may want to start with low angle routes that don't tax that shoulder too much initially.

If you can afford physical therapy - do it. Regular massage will help you regain range of motion, too.

Remember you pay medical professionals for their advice and help to return to the healthiest state possible. Be conservative at first, then push them. If climbing and biking are your goals, you must make that clear. Otherwise, they will guide you to desk jockey shape. Many will initially underpromise what you may accomplish.

The babyboomers are redefining expectations for our bodies at 50 and 60.

Good luck and don't settle for couch potato unless that is what you aspire to do.

I haven't had much trauma to my upper body. My experience is all with legs/knees/feet.

Matt, I am also 57, and I have had enough injuries and ER time over the years (too much). (My mom always said I was an accident waiting to happen.)

All I can say is, concentrate on healing, take things slowly (and I'd say this to a twentysomething as well) never rush back from an injury, and your's sounds serious enough.

I think you will know when to push your body a bit further. But please don't rush back, take it easy. Let your body speak, not your mind/emotions. You may be itching to get out on the rock, bike, whatever. But follow your med professionals advice and take it slowly.

Listen to your body, it will tell you when to start ramping up. I know from experience.

I'm sure you will agree that every injury is kind of unique. Coupled with that fact, each individual copes with various injuries in their own way, and some heel quicker than others. Dealing with pain is perhaps the most challenging aspect of all sports related injuries.

I can only tell you that I'm 67, and in the last 15 years, I've broken both ankles, one tibia, serious breaks to one foot, and a few other accidents.

Each time I've bounced back pretty well, but it all takes it's toll. I would rather live that way, than go the way of a coach potato; like many of my close relatives.

In October 2011 when I was 49 I broke my left ankle one week before a planned climbing trip to France. I was gutted to say the least. The plaster came off in December and I under went physio which really helped and encouraged me to get back climbing. I was scared that when I first placed my foot in a crack and twisted that my ankle would just snap. In fact the physiotherapist told me to stop being a whimp and get out and go climbing. During the recovery time I also booked a trip to climb in Spain the following April. That really gave me the incentive to train and to heal rather than vegetate. So in the April I had a week in Spain, then in May I found myself in the Valley for the first time and did a bunch of classics. In July I had another trip to Spain and October saw me in France. So from the depths of despair I ended up having the best climbing trips of my life. An injury isn't necessarily the sign to stop it's just a punctuation mark to pause, take stock and move onwards. Here's wishing you all the best and a speedy recovery from this side of the Pond.

Your recovery is highly dependent on your attitude and work ethic. People age when they fail to do what is necessary to recover.

I think this is, perhaps, the best advice. I severed my Achilles tendon in a bouldering fall at the climbing gym about 18 months ago, and didn't get medical clearance to climb again until 9 months after the fall. I'm still not in adequate cardiovascular condition to do the climbs I intended this year, but even at age 62, I'm getting more fit, and I don't think in the end I'll have lost all that much.

As to the mental aspect, I've taken some pretty nasty falls over the years, and it usually took time to recover my confidence, but it always seems to come back. Just take it slowly and follow Dave Kos's advice -- don't worry about the rating. Just climb something comfortable until you get the feel back.

If you're looking for an old climber recovering from injury to climb with, let me know.

Please make that TWO of us, as I am trying hard to find some aged climbers just like yourself.

John, I've been meaning to contact you. Can we two get together and discuss the possibility of such a partnership? I've never climbed Toll House and would love to go there with an experienced, knowledgeable partner so we can "get on with the climbing" and not have any BS about which routes are best for us.

I can go at any time or any day. And I could go at any time, so the sooner the better. :-)

I had surgery to replace a blown ACL when I was 68. It is now 17 months later. I've recovered perhaps 90% of my leg strength. Whatever it is, I don't notice it climbing at all.

I did nothing but rehab exercises for about seven months and then started climbing outdoors. I started leading immediately, on relatively easy things (5.5--5.7), because I didn't want to build up a mental block about that. When I follow climbs, I tend to think I'd have more trouble leading them then when I actually do lead them, so following doesn't help my mental state at all, and meanwhile your protection skills atrophy and you have to grab three pieces before you can get one placement.

From a climbing perspective, the biggest deficit I suffered is not related to the surgery at all, but is rather a decrease in hand endurance that has been extremely hard to reverse. This is perhaps a feature of age (and the amount of time I can reasonably devote to training), and I'm going to have to live with the results, but I'm still managing to get better, even if the pace is beyond glacial. In any case, it is hard to know whether the endurance decline is related to the seven month layoff or just the vicissitudes of approaching seventy.

I'd say work hard at rehab, but train smart and don't set yourself back. Get a bunch of climbs that are easy for you under your belt and don't think about pushing things for a good long while.

I was 58 when I broke my collarbone, shoulder blade, 3 ribs, punctured lung, pulled every muscle on the right side of my body, smashed my right hand (my right thumb is now 1/4 inch shorter than the left). For 2 months I could do nothing but sit on the couch--it hurt too much to lay down.

No climbing for almost a year but after about 8 months I found that belaying others and pulling their ropes etc. was good therapy. Today, at 64, that broken shoulder is stronger than my left shoulder but like rgold, my overall endurance has never been regained.

This can be caused by a canalith (read: "canal" as in ear canal and "lith" as in stone.)

A canalith is a tiny chip of calcified material floating around in your ear canal, and as it contacts the cilia on the side of the canal it induces crazy vertigo.

I went through this last year. I didn't know wtf was going on, and went to a neuro who recognized the symptoms and sent me to a PT who knew the canalith re-positioning maneuver. One treatment fixed it 100%.

FWIW I am 60 and have had to rehab from injuries numerous and other things. My advice is to achieve a good base line of fitness before you think about climbing or you are open to more injury. In other words metabolic conditioning (be at your optimal weight plus cardio fitness,) and take up a strength / mobility practice like Pilates so you can move well, be strong in awkward positions, have good posture etc. I do Pilates and Yoga, but for me the Yoga is secondary.

I don't know collar bones. And I'm twenty years your junior. I broke my back though. I'd say to have more small term goals than big when recovering. It's good to see the big picture but when you are broken too much of the big picture is overwhelming.

Physical therapists are your friend and they are awesome at stitching all those small steps into one big recovery.

Suppose Evil Knieval was 80 and was hurt jumping 18 busses. Then he wrote he was not sure how
he was going to get back into condition to do 18 busses again. What would you say?

When you are that old getting all the way back is an illusion. "Back" is a steadily declining quantity.
Keep at it and you will need a walker to get to the undertaker's. Better to get real and be able to
walk to the undertaker's, in no pain and enjoying the flowers the whole way.

I'm twenty years older than you, Matt, and have had a few minor calamities along the way. From my perspective, the older you become the more rigid should be an exercise schedule. Not harder, of course, but you must keep at it religiously, session after session, or you will slide into a decline from which there is only a slight chance of regaining strength. Jack Lalanne exercised every day until his mid nineties, and there was a feature a few days ago in the Denver Post of a man in his late nineties going regularly to the gym and feeling good. Climbing is an activity one can theoretically do into old age, since technique and style can compensate for diminishing strength. But in my case severe shoulder arthritis intervened a few years ago, limiting motion and sometimes painful. Nevertheless, I kept at bodyweight exercises and usually feel invigorated after a workout - deceptively youthful, in fact. It's an illusion, but much better than the alternative.