Injury after shooting a match

[Tactica]

Shot IL sectional on Sunday, felt great, good match.

Wake up Mon, wrist hurts like crazy when I lift thumb out away from hand. Can move wrist up and down just fine, but move wrist in toward body, and can't... something wrong.

By Friday, pain not going away, go get it checked out and DR says it's an over use injury, likely from recoil of gun on Sunday. I'm prescribed anti-inflamatory meds, issued a brace and no shooting for 2 weeks... if not healed, must get MRI!

I'm still a new shooter, as I've only been doing USPSA for a bit over a year now, but I've never had this happen and we shot less than 300 rounds in the match... I shot more than 8,000 rounds last year and more than one match with 300 rounds... so, what the heck?

Anyone had bizarre injuries of the wrist... from recoil?

I'm unhappy as I have two matches coming up that I really want to shoot...

I just find this odd.

Thanks for listening,

[SteveU]

Best guess over the internet:

DeQuervain's tendinitis.

Look it up on www.assh.org

[dover0020]

To me it sounds like it might be the shooting combined with something else. I have slept on my shoulder wrong before and not been able to lift my arm the next day. It also sounds like it might be tendinitis. If it's not better in a day or so get it looked at, you may just need an anti inflammatory.

[sdwilliams]

Behave yourelf for now but once 100%, work on conditioning the muscles in your arms, wrists and hands; focus on repetitions vs. weight and build up both over time. Though you've been shooting a year or so, this is still a fairly new way of using these muscles it sounds and they need to adjust.

Good luck!

[Dan Sierpina]

What division are you shooting? I can't shoot Open any more, the straight back recoil and sharp impulse kills my hand after a couple mags, a whole match will affect my elbow.

[Tactica]

Thanks for the replies.

I shoot Limited, STI .40 Edge.

Happy to report I'm feeling much better and no brace now. It only took two Dr visits (one to urgent care, one to a specialist), a brace for a week, prescription anti-inflamatories and a cortizone shot to the area, it feels good again.

In generic terms, it was some form of irritation to the tendon / sleeve area behind the thumb where the hand meets the arm. I could move the wrist around in most angles and twists, but at a very specific motion, I could almost feel a binding or a catch of the wrist. It was very uncomfortable. It was described to me that the tendon was irritated and when twisted in the right fashion, was catching on the sleeve it moves through, thus causing the sudden tweak or spike in sensation.

I'm still not quite sure what caused this, but it could have even been something that became irritated over time and perhaps just finally got to a point of irritation that I noticed it??? That is speculation on my part...

Somone mentioned some regular repetition excersizes, i think that's a good idea.

I'm shooting a indoor range holiday / halloween fun shoot tonight. Just two stages but themed as its a local club match. Hopefully no suprises and that goes well. Assuming it does, I'll be figuring out a routine that continues to work out the arms and wrist. I'm already doing some endurance training, nothing over the top, but enough to keep me from getting winded on the big courses or long days at the range for area matches and the like... so, adding something in for the arms shouldn't be a problem.

Cheers for the feedback,

[bbbean]

Anyone had bizarre injuries of the wrist... from recoil?

Any chance you put in a few extra hours of dryfire, practice, or weight training in the week or two before the match? Do you tend to carry tension in that arm?

BB

[Tactica]

Hey Mr. Bean,

I did put in some more dry fire practice and also had to crank out 300 rounds before the match to make sure I had plenty, but I would not have called any of this 'out of the norm' for a match prep. No extra time working out... just my normal every morning routine... pushups, crunches, jumping jacks, etc.

[bbbean]

Hey Mr. Bean,

I did put in some more dry fire practice and also had to crank out 300 rounds before the match to make sure I had plenty, but I would not have called any of this 'out of the norm' for a match prep. No extra time working out... just my normal every morning routine... pushups, crunches, jumping jacks, etc.

If you were developing an overuse injury that could still be enough to trigger it. At least it happened at the end of the year when it's not so bad to take it easy on your wrist for a few months.

I just developed my first case of tennis elbow about 10 days ago. A combination of doing dry fire exercises with weights, running extra speed shoot drills (I was one good classifier from moving up), and the tension of my busy season were enough to send me to the doc. Now I'll spend the winter not shooting and shooting 9mm when I do. Doc says I'll be back in fighting condition in a couple of months.