Riding after breaking ribs

Broken ribs suck. It makes for an, say, “interesting” experience. I broke 2, maybe 4, ribs Jan 2018 early on the third day of a weeklong cycling holiday in Spain the wife gave me for my 50th, and a best friend and former training buddy in the States joined me). Two ribs were clearly broken and another two may have been. Right side.

As @batwood14 said, for God’s sake, do not sneeze. Two days after, I walking in the small Spanish town to get food and felt like I was close to passing out when I sneezed.

As someone else said, the trainer/turbo is your friend. Ride upright and easy until you can lean.

Be conservative to make sure it all heals up fully. I slowly started running, an ordeal itself, and fell on ice (snowy / icy Feb & March) and felt like I didn’t break any but certainly stressed them. The pain of lying down, deep breathing, laughing returned though not to the level in the first couple of weeks of the crash.

Short of it: take it easy, focus on motion and circulation and increase slowly up to before it feels painful. Feed your body to heal. If you get back into too quickly, you’ll set yourself back.

By the way, the ER visit in Spain, x-rays, anti-inflammatories, and pain killers (only needed for first two days), and seeing my doc once I was home, the total cost was … zero. Between Spanish healthcare and Swiss health insurance, zero. As an American, I appreciate that low cost.

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My daughter was injured in the states years ago and it cost a fortune to have three stiches. Was a real eye opener compared to the Australian system.

Thanks for the advice. Getting cabin fever at the moment, need you remain positive

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It’s only been, what, about 5 or so days? While you’ll be able to get on the turbo soon, do realize that core strength workouts are, well, out of the question for a bit longer :wink: Consider this a taper! You’ll be back with a vengeance sooner than you think.

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Breaking a rib makes cycling really uncomfortable; I’m sorry you’re going through all of this. Obviously ask your doctor for medical advice, but pain will be your limiting factor (the position and deep breathing both hurt me quite a bit). It will all differ based on location, displacement, etc.

I think I was off the trainer for a week and off the road for about three weeks, trying to be careful not to fall while I was healing. In addition to giving your body the energy to heal, you’ll probably be sleeping badly for a while, so take that into account.

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I’ve broken ribs multiple times – and broken multiple ribs multiple times, and suffered multiple sneezes multiple times, and had pneumothoraces multiple times. And multiple times, I’ve taken a week off to let the lung puncture heal, then mounted the trainer, then stayed there for four or five weeks, and then gone back out on the road. It ain’t fun, but riding outside with any kind of fracture that’s still healing is just a bad idea.

(I’ve done ribs, clavicle, scapula, and acromion – accept the trainer, let it heal).

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I was thinking of just doing indoor work once I get back on the bike for a while. Safest way to start again plus it’s really quick to get fitness back up I guess

Going to get my bike back this week to properly assess the damage and then get it fixed, it may be a week or two before I can actually ride it. Definitely itching to get back on it again. Watching GCN videos had really got me up for it.

Has been a bit longer to get back on the bike. Had some left knee issues including x-rays to check for kneecap cracks. Turned out to be bruised behind the kneecap.

Anyhow I have been back on the bike and it’s a good feeling just to turn the legs over slowly at least

Small steps in the right direction.

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Thanks for the advice. I’ll also see how it goes.

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I’ll add my experience here. I injured my ribs going OTB at MTB race in Palo Duro Canyon. I don’t know whether I broke them – the doctor said that as long as I wasn’t having any trouble breathing (which could indicate a collapsed or punctured lung) the recovery would be the same. I took a full two weeks off with no activity at all. At two weeks, I tried an easy spin on the trainer and it caused the ribs to hurt more, so I backed off for another week. About three weeks in, I could do easy rides with no pain. I did a week’s worth of easy riding and then resumed training at four weeks. So for all intents and purposes, I took a month of the bike.

Once I jumped back into training, I had returned to my pre-injury fitness/conditioning in about four weeks.

And yes, Aleve! For some reason, much more effective than ibuprofen.

Cracked the right ribs 3 weeks ago when I tried to shave some speed off on a descent before hitting a corner that was tighter than I was expecting. I lost the front wheel and did what we all do in that circumstance, protected the bike with my body by taking the fall and sliding. Adrenalin protected me at first but then it was agony especially sleeping. I gave it a week after which it was just dull throb most of the time but then I did what everyone on here tells you not to do, I went out and did some hill climbs. which then set it back. So don’t do any rides where you get out of the saddle and pull on the bars. The trainer is definitely the way to go.

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Hey Raffles

Hopefully your on the mend. The description of your crash makes it sound like you were lucky to only break a rib and I guess some scratches.

Pain free climbing will be soon

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I just did the collarbone, 7 ribs, and punctured a lung, because I can. Day 10, today, cold Turkey off the pain meds, walked 3 miles. I have done this more times than you’ve had hot dinners. I can usually race a week afterwards, and not take a day off work, even though I deliver mail on an 11 mile route. However, I found the collarbone took awhile to get back into the TT drops, and hunker down on the road bike. Three times I’ve done this collarbone, and I find the body benefits from the rest and new course of progressive load.

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Some horror stories here, touch wood I haven’t broken any bones that I know of.

I don’t know what I did when I was younger though.

Onetime I was cycling to my parents when someone coming the other way on a cyclepath came flying round a blind bend and his handlebar went straight into my chest. He apologised and after dusting myself off I cycled home and thought nothing more of it. Until the next morning I couldn’t move my arm behind my back and there was no chance I could hold the bars I thought. It didn’t really get any better for 3-4weeks then I braved the bike again but there was nothing to brave and only then did it start to ease off. Perhaps it was broken or something.

Another time I was riding with a top London surgeon and he was positive I must have broke my collar bone at some point. Not to my knowledge though :thinking:

I’ve had 3 broken rib incident and I managed to re-break 2 of them while healing.
It’s embarrassing but stretching a sock caused a rebreak and tighten a wrench under a car also caused a rebreak.
As far as riding, I forgot it the TT bike for surprisingly comfortable or the flat bar mtb… play around and don’t assume. Indoor is safer, stick to it, you’ll hate yourself if inducing a rebreak.

Has anyone had rib pains come back a year or more afterwards? I seem to have my rib injury (never went for x-ray but had a huge bruise and could hardly breathe past shallow breaths after failing to unclip and tipping over into a bike rack) flare back up somewhat now and then.

About 20yrs ago I broke most of the ribs my back on my right side (as well as collarbone) in a biking accident. The worst thing was trying to sleep and I ended up sleeping in a chair for a while. I was back on the trainer withing about 3 weeks I recall, mostly once the collarbone knitted together (didn’t have surgery on it).

I had discomfort in that area for years afterwards. It wasn’t too serious and never affected any physical performance. I do rarely (couple times a year) get a minor flare up which seems to happen if sitting in a weird chair like at a theater or sporting event.

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Has anyone had rib pains come back a year or more afterwards?

Six years after a three rib fracture a knot in my middle right back will seize … mostly during long urban walks (poor footwear? hard concrete?) but not while on the bike. I can alleviate it by maintaining core strength.

One year ago I broke three different ribs on my front right. Apart from three months of discomfort no lasting impact with those.

Good luck with it …

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For those having trouble sleeping with broken ribs: Try a “Power lift chair”. We bought one on Amazon. I could sleep in it. I do not know how I would have managed with out it after breaking two ribs riding my fat tire bike.