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Broken legs and ankles heal better if you walk on them within weeks

(www.scientificamerican.com)
611 points sohkamyung | 1 comments | 19 Feb 25 12:36 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source
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ehnto ◴[19 Feb 25 14:04 UTC] No.43102277[source]▶
The pathology for broken collar bones was changing right as I took up mountain biking, and subsequently shattered my collarbone.

It was hotly debated at the hospital, if my specific case should be operated on or not. Each time I had a checkup, one doctor would say "wait and see" while the other was saying "I can't believe we didn't operate on this".

At any rate, the outcome was as good as if they had operated on it, according to the doc anyway. Nice of them to test it out on me!

More related to this though, I have broken both my collarbones, the first time I had little direction and just held my arm still for 2-3 months. It took forever to heal, and my arm atrophied significantly. The second time, similar severity. I was guided through rehab and I was back using my arm within the first month, very little atrophy.

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edwcross ◴[19 Feb 25 14:58 UTC] No.43102787[source]▶
Given the amount of injuries related to mountain biking, is there some specific insurance needed for it? It seems one of those "net-negative for the society activities", like trampolines.
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Daneel_ ◴[19 Feb 25 15:16 UTC] No.43102966[source]▶
No? I’ve been mountain biking for over 20 years and never any broken bones or had to go to hospital as a result, despite doing downhill, trials, and dirt jumping. And I have 20 years of fitness to show for it - that’s about as positive as it gets.
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_Algernon_ ◴[19 Feb 25 15:40 UTC] No.43103253[source]▶
Get 8 billion people to flip a coin 30 times in a row, and one is likely to get heads 30 times in a row. It means nothing.
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Fricken ◴[19 Feb 25 16:29 UTC] No.43103976[source]▶
He's been flipping the same coin for 20 years and it has never come up tails. That's quite the coin. There is no data set more relevant to a person than their own experience.

Meanwhile I don't have enough fingers and toes to count up all the people I've known personally who have been killed or crippled in auto collisions.

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1. Dylan16807 ◴[19 Feb 25 20:58 UTC] No.43107585[source]▶
> He's been flipping the same coin for 20 years and it has never come up tails. That's quite the coin.

That also means nothing, because you said nothing about how often the coin is flipped.

The first papers that show up in google say "Mountain biking athletes were found to have an overall injury risk rate of 0.6% per year and 1 injury per 1000 h of biking." and "75% of the injuries were minor, such as skin wounds and simple contusions"

4000 hours per serious injury would mean 2000 hours per coin flip. A hypothetical person that bikes twice a month, 4 hours each time, for 20 years with these accident rates, would have flipped the coin once.

But if the accident rates were 10x higher, you could easily still get the same results. One person is just not enough data here. Let's use the real data that show it's pretty safe.