Anybody ever run with a cast on?

This topic comes up occasionally, so I'll repeat my own experience. When I was in my twenties, I broke my wrist, and had to run with a plaster arm cast that went all the way up to the armpit. It weighed about two pounds. I continued to run, but started to develop knee problems, apparently from the imbalance. My mother came up with the idea of wrapping two one-pound bags of garbanzo beans onto the other arm, using an ace bandage for the wrapping. The knee pain went away, I won two road races with the cast on, and Running Times did an article on me, titled something "The Garbanzo Bean Champion." After I was able to switch to a lightweight fiberglas cast up to the elbow, I switched to a lightweight arm-guard of some sort on the other arm to keep everything in balance.

Yes, and after a couple of weeks, it stunk to high heaven.

broke my hand too and ran with a cast. Thing stunk like hell by the end of the month because I still had to keep it out of the shower yet I was allowed to sweat in it.

No, but I've run with many a cast-off!

oh yeah, I had surgery on my hand for it, so if you only had you bones set you didn't even have it that bad so get out and run. Also I hope you picked the waterproof cast if that was an option.

This was actually when I started running. Broke a finger or arm (forget which) as a soph in HS and, with the cast, the gym teacher told me I had to run around the athletic fields (given that I couldn't do the other stuff the class was doing).

This was back in the day, so gym class was daily. By the end of those few weeks of 5x/wk running (and walking), I was an okay runner.

I had a broken left (I'm a righty) wrist and wore 2 casts; a second replaced the first after shrinkage. I had no problem then. But after it came off the wrist hurt very badly until I ran with a sock gripped in the hand. That seemed to stabilize it, although I don't know for how long I had to do that.

Keith Brantly finished 3rd at the 1981 World Junior Cross Champs wearing a cast for a broken arm.

http://mypage.bluewin.ch/tomtytom/iccu/wxc_iaaf/wxc_JM1981S.html

I broke my wrist in a track race in high school. Some runners went down in front of me in the first 100m of the 1500m, I couldn't stop and went right over them, landing on my palms and breaking my left wrist. I ended up needing surgery. The plaster cast (fiberglass wasn't allowed due to the pins in my wrist) went up to just before my elbow. Amazingly (in hindsight) I ran 4:07 for 1500m wearing the cast (I was about a 4:00 runner at the time). I found it hurt the quality of my training, however, and I ran poorly the following season.

The one legacy of that accident (aside from the surgery scars) is that I switched to wearing my watch on the right side and have never switched back.

- Liam

ha ha!

rimshot wrote:

No, but I've run with many a cast-off!

ask about a removable cast... I'm guessing probably with a broken hand you might not be able to get one, but I broke my elbow and had surgery and had a cast that went the entire length of my arm up to my arm pit. the doctor gave me a removable cast so i could do PT on the elbow. I took the cast off when I would go for a run to save it from smelling terrible... it worked but I was always extremely nervous about tripping or something and really doing more damage

also helps that i had to hold my elbow in a running form anyway

i broke my arm when i was a sophmore in high school, my radial shaft to be exact, and i had to wear a full arm cast for 6 weeks.

it honestly wasn't to bad.

the smell was pretty musty though

[quote]Avocados Number wrote:

This topic comes up occasionally, so I'll repeat my own experience. When I was in my twenties, I broke my wrist, and had to run with a plaster arm cast that went all the way up to the armpit. It weighed about two pounds. I continued to run, but started to develop knee problems, apparently from the imbalance. My mother came up with the idea of wrapping two one-pound bags of garbanzo beans onto the other arm, using an ace bandage for the wrapping. The knee pain went away, I won two road races with the cast on, and Running Times did an article on me, titled something "The Garbanzo Bean Champion." After I was able to switch to a lightweight fiberglas cast up to the elbow, I switched to a lightweight arm-guard of some sort on the other arm to keep everything in balance.[/quote

That is so awesome.

My oldest kid broke both arms last fall and was able to get away with wearing leather and velcro type braces. She played a full season of soccer with these braces on. She was allowed to take them off only for bathing.

anotherrunner wrote:

ask about a removable cast... I'm guessing probably with a broken hand you might not be able to get one

I don't know which bone is broken, but if it is a fracture of the scaphoid (navicular) bone near the wrist, it should be treated seriously and immobilized to avoid lifelong complications, so don't try to play around with the cast or get it removed prematurely.

Mike Roche ran the 1976 Olympic Steeplechase first round wearing a cast on a broken arm.

He tripped over the final barrier in the US trials, got up and overtook the guy then in third place to make the U.S. team.

He is the uncle of the California HS vaulter of this past year, Casey Roche.