Heelychat, the forum for heelys, the shoes with wheels - View topic

Joined: 15 Jun 2008 Posts: 1391 Location: UK

I think I'm going to have to ease-off on the heeling for a little bit, due to a couple of injuries giving me grief.

One of them is an old injury I've had for a while: I used to be overweight (not much, just 153 lbs, but that's quite heavy for someone my height) and to get rid of the weight I got seriously into running for a while - but it got to the point where I was running 21-28 miles a day, which of course was great for weight loss, but I damaged the meniscus of my knees (the rubbing surfaces between the bones) - as you can tell, I never do anything by halves, I always "go the whole hog" as they say, often too much so: with the running I practically ran till my knees wore out. . . with the heeling I bought so many styles in a few months that I about broke the bank LOL - but that's just me. When I get into stuff, I REALLY get into it Very Happy

I was heeling at least 4 hours a day practically every day, some days I'd do 8-12 hours straight - you see I'm not at all a fast learner when it comes to Heeling - I just have to put in tons of hours in order to learn the tricks.

So yeah, I lost like 14 lbs a month for many months due to the running, but even now my knees still hurt sometimes, as they do when I do a lot of heeling, so that's one injury. . .

The other one is one I got from falling whilst doing my second day of grind practise: I had all the pads and gear on, elbows, helmet, the works, but there doesn't seem to be any way to protect my shoulders: you see, one time I fell and to stop my head from hitting the bar I caught myself with my forearm/wrist/elbow: the elbow was fine as it was padded, but the force sent my shoulder into my head so hard it about gave me a concussion and dislocated the shoulder. . . I got it back straight and all but it still hurts a lot, and just when I think it's almost healed sometimes (inevitably when trying to learn stuff like footy's for the first time) I occasionally have a fall on my Heelys and have to catch myself with my arm, and again that sends some shock through the shoulder and makes it worse again . . . Looking back at the way the original shoulder injury occured and the way I fell onto the grind-pole, there wasn't much I could have done - I could have used my hand more to break the fall but I probably would have broke my wrist if I did that - unfortunately due to the way I fell I couldn't use the gymnastics technique of using my side/back - it woulda been over the pole, which probably woulda busted some ribs with all my weight/speed behind it.

So, I have thought about it, and there doesn't seem to be any way I can always be sure of falling safely when grinding, after all, you never know WHEN you are going to fall, and my reactions just aren't as quick as they used to be (which is why I got out of the motor-racing) - that's just a fact of life I have to deal with now that I'm older, so I am gonna have to cool it a little, meaning you probably won't see me posting in the "I learned a new trick" thread for a while, but I'll still be around - I'm not gonna let you people off that easily Smile

Don't get me wrong, I'm certainly not gonna stop heeling completely, I'm still probably gonna do an hour a day, but I need to give myself time for these injuries to recover properly, so that I can come back and do it properly afterwards.

Feel kinda crappy about it tho, I love my Heeling, and I feel I've let myself down or something by not being able to do it for a while - how stupid is that?

It happens...

There is no way you are going to protect every part of your body, and its going to happen. Thats when you have to ease off heeling for a bit. When it starts to feel better, take it easy and slow... I know you like to go for the win, but your health isn't a competition.

As for the knee thing, I know how you feel. After a couple of hours I have some serious pains from some old injuries. Thats when you stop for the day and pick it up later.