Broken hand, training with a cast

Hi people.

So I crashed on my MTB and apparently broke a bone in my hand. The hand is now in a cast for the next four weeks.
The doctor placing the cast said to keep it dry, and recommended not working up a sweat.
I’m just wondering what others have done.
I was in the middle of general build, so the workouts were pretty intensive.
Could I just do some z2 workouts in a cold room until the cast is off, perhaps even a few anaerobic efforts, all without getting really sweaty?

Thanks,
Rune

I would certainly recommend trying to keep your hand up, so that sweat doesn’t run down into the cast.

This would mean just sitting up and spinning I suppose, but it’s better than nothing. Maybe aim a fan at that arm?

Mathew Hayman did a lot of work indoors with a cast on… :slight_smile: won Paris Roubaix in 2016

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There is a water proof cast available. They use them for children a lot.

I asked for one when I broke my scaphoid. Unfortunately, I had to have surgery, after my one week post op I got a removable cast that had a boa on it. I didn’t miss a trainer session after that. Good luck.

i’ve had a few MTB teammates in the past that after breaking hand would bring their handlebar or grip into the doctors office so that they could get the cast molded to allow them to continue to ride with a cast.
To stop sweat just stretch a sweatband over and keep near the elbow if sweat truly is an issue for you. But otherwise it should be OK.

I broke a finger in a cobbled race last year. For the first two weeks I could only do endurance (lots and lots of Baxter!), before moving to tempo, but the sweat meant the cast stunk to high heaven by the time it came off.

If it’s not a risk of infection and you (and those around you) don’t mind a certain…musk…I’d say you could get away with anything up to tempo. Even with just a broken finger, I found my RPE was much higher than normal and tempo felt like threshold.

Thanks for the suggestions guys, it really helped with my mood.
I did a few anaerobic efforts today after warming up, and then began with Baxter.
I’m training in a pretty cold workshop, so I didn’t get too hot, and the padding under the cast didn’t feel especially humid. I think I will continue with this for a few weeks and see what happens :slight_smile:

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