Last March, I wrote a blog in response to the “holy shite” moment that many had when Mary Lou Retton casually mentioned having thirty surgeries to repair a long list of gymnastics-related injures. On that date, I was up to seven surgeries-which felt awesome in comparison. Today? Today I am back on the couch after surgery number nine. You can read the original article here or read an updated version below.
At the end of 2023 when Mary Lou Retton was in the fight of her life, one of the side notes was that, throughout that life, she’d had some thirty surgeries to repair a long list of injuries spawned by her gymnastics era.
Just after that detail was dropped, muggles across America gasped with horror. THIRTY SURGERIES?! In my home, my husband immediately announced that he would never put our children in gymnastics. That was very reassuring considering our children were 18 and 21 years old, neither of whom had a sliver of an urge to do anything sports-related.
On the flip side, gymnasts across America (retired or active, it didn’t really matter) shrugged before starting a quick tally of their own body parts: How many surgeries have I had? How many broken bones? How many ligament tears or dislocations? What will I need to have fixed…eventually?
“Eventually” is a favorite word for athletes when speaking of their beaten bodies. We often say, “I’ll get that fixed, eventually” while continuing to roughhouse our aches and pains.
When Mary Lou said, “Thirty surgeries,” gymnasts across America thought, “Well, yeah, that tracks.”
My current, gymnastics-related surgical count is nine. I’ve had surgery on both feet, twice on my right shoulder, three times on my right wrist, and (now) twice on my right knee. I’m actually writing this from the couch as I recover from that second knee surgery.
I know I can’t use heavy machinery for a few weeks, but I do hope it’s okay to use my laptop. If you see a typo, blame the meds, not the writer.
I’ve done fairly well in the “traumatic injury” arena with only two breaks. I had a bone chip in my right wrist and a back fracture that wasn’t discovered until it had already healed. I did sprain my left ankle on three different occasions, each healed by weeks spent in an orthopedic boot–a must-have in every gymnast’s wardrobe. Cortisone shots? I think I own stock in the company.
When Mary Lou said she’d had thirty surgeries, I felt relieved. At least I hadn’t had thirty surgeries, right? I mean, sure, Mary Lou has an Olympic Gold medal but I’ve only had nine surgeries so who was really the better gymnast?
No, I know. It wasn’t me.
Last April, my knee doctor harvested some cartilage cells during a clean-up surgery. He sent those cells to Boston where they spent a year in a lab growing big and strong through a rigorous training program. Yesterday, Kneena (as I named my cartilage baby), came home and was implanted back into my right knee, filling two potholes that were made when I wiped out on a balance beam routine in 1989. I feel lucky to be part of this cutting edge procedure while also feeling relieved to finally be reaching the end of my “Things that Need to be Fixed” list.
Hopefully.
This cartilage training camp is called the MACI procedure. MACI allows your own cartilage cells to be harvested and sent for some intense growth in a lab before they are implanted back into your knee’s pesky bone-on-bone spots.
Gymnastics is a true minefield for injury.
Ironically, many of those injuries are not traumatic but rather the culprit of years of pounding on joints. It’s not that there aren’t traumatic injuries, but it’s more common for a gymnast to roll an ankle walking off a mat then break an arm during a fall. Ankle rolls while walking – yes, that’s the more dangerous part of gymnastics. It’s an injury that most often occurs following a perfect landing on a skill that involved flipping and spinning several feet in the air before mentally checking out while leaving the performance area. For many gymnasts, if the side of a mat doesn’t get them, then a sidewalk’s curb certainly will.
Four-inch beam? No problem. Stepping off a curb? Danger, danger!
Yuka Sugiura, a neuro performance coach, explained why here: Level Pro Neuro. The summary of Sugiura’s study was discovering that the hours gymnasts spend training within a 5 -8” vision field actually untrains their peripheral vision. Is that not nuts? Also…it explains so much. I suppose the good news is that the first thing high-level gymnasts perfect is how to handle a crash landing.
Perfecting the crash landing is training that lasts forever, by the way. I’ve proven that more than once by falling down the last two of our basement stairs. Most recently, I fell forward down those stairs. Rather than waiting for my life to flash before my eyes, I pulled in my arms, tucked my head, and prepped my left butt-cheek to handle the landing. Thank you, gymnastics. My husband was incredibly impressed and, yes, we did eventually install a handrail.
Most gymnastics injuries are cultivated from the endless pushing, pulling, and pounding on joints. For those of us tumbling in the last century, training was more about the numbers (repetitive pounding) than efficiency (quality over quantity). There weren’t braces available for every joint in every size. There weren’t sting pads or foam pits. There weren’t mats stacked to the ceiling to ensure soft landings. There wasn’t a medical community filled with experts on high-level athletics.
When I was invited to my first competitive team, we started each workout by rolling out a wrestling mat for our floor routines. Beams were still wooden (try straddling one of those…). Handgrips were a luxury item for the kids with rich parents. The rest of us would leave slabs of our skin on the uneven bars while we dashed to the bathroom to pee on our palms before returning to crank out more routines. Don’t judge…it works as well for rips as it does for jellyfish stings.
Today’s gymnasts benefit from a long list of improvements in the sport yet, still, they often retire with a long list of injuries.
While I am not so old school to think that today’s gymnasts have it easy, I am mildly jealous.
Mary Lou trained in the years that I was training. Though we never crossed paths, I know exactly what type of equipment she trained on. I also what her coach (Bela Karolyi) was like. There were a few clubs in my area that followed Bela’s philosophies and I’m thankful that I didn’t land in their stable. It was easy to spot those gymnasts that did as they were pale, thin, and covered in athletic tape holding their beaten bodies together.
I was not as high-level; my coaches were not as cutthroat and yet I still retired with a list of nagging injuries. Gymnastics is hard, both mentally and physically.
The potholes in my knee that were fixed yesterday were created decades ago when crashed during a balance beam routine. I missed my landing foot on a side-aerial but did catch the edge of my kneecap on the corner of the beam before hitting the deck. I visited my doctor who took an x-ray and diagnosed me with cartilage mice. Essentially, I’d taken off a few chunks of cartilage that were now floating behind my kneecap. The cure? It was the 80’s…so…have a nice day!
Until I turned 50, I was still flipping, though only on trampolines. On my last visit to the local gymnastics club, I had a crazy crash which, thankfully, never appeared on TikTok. While I was flying through the air (and assuming the correct crash position), I had a lot of thoughts about how I was going to be to explain the fall to my husband. I had told him I was going to the gym, but definitely did not tell him the gym I was going to was the gymnastics gym.
I managed to walk away from that crash unscathed but I gave myself enough of a scare to know that it was time to hang up my leotard. I did a few more flips (always end on a good one!) while telling myself that, at fifty, an injury could be much more catastrophic than in years past. Regretfully, it was time to engage common sense.
Today, I’m sequestered to the couch with a knee-to-ankle brace on my leg. Tomorrow, I start physical therapy with the hopes of retiring this brace in time for an August trip to Alaska. I’d hate to miss a chance to go dog-sledding, after all.
What could possibly go wrong?
Don’t answer that.