April 9, 2016 - January 20th, 2017

It has been a while since I updated this blog. The last time was after the University of Calgary International Cup 2016 where I competed 4 events for the first time in 23 months off with the wrist surgery and recovery and two foot fractures.

Well, I was barely back in the gym 4 days following the UCIC competition when I fell on a simple pommel horse movement, fracturing the growth plate in my right thumb! This was my operative hand, so another blow to right wrist mobility. Thankfully, I didn't do any muscle or tendon damage. I did have to have a surgeon realign the bones under local anaesthetic and imaging (closed reduction). That worked out so I did not need open surgery. It was a 'normal' growth plate fracture with 6 weeks in a splint/cast and 2 more weeks with no loading. 

That was not what I hoped for after the UCIC meet. :-( I was hoping to finally train some vault and floor now that my feet were healed, and add those events to Provincials in April. 

Like when I had wrist surgery, I was back to doing leg events with no hands and conditioning core as much as possible. It was a simple growth plate fracture, no tendon damage, so would be good to go after 6 weeks immobilized. Of the different injuries over the past 2 1/2 years, this was the 'easiest' because it was a simple fracture and normal gradual return to arm events after. I tried to stay positive and continue training, guitar, and being with friends and family.

I had a good time the end of April with Ruslan, a former teammate, climbing the Grassi Lakes trail in Canmore, Alberta. Good times!

It was great to be outdoors in the mountains with friends and family.

While training floor and vault with the thumb splint, I pulled my left tib anterior muscle at the end of April. It felt like a sharp burning and made even walking hard. Frustration after frustration! It felt like everything was falling apart. Looking back, I can see I was growing fast this whole time.

3 weeks before Nationals, I got the green light to train without the splint and slowly start weight bearing again on my hands. I was far from ready to compete, but the National Director allowed me to attempt the Novice strength and flexibility tests day 1 of Nationals in Edmonton, Alberta. My coach, Bin Fan, and I worked on those elements and I was happy to at least do those for Alberta. I was the only National High Performance Novice from my province. 

CTV did a little Inspired Albertan piece on my journey (scroll to my clip):

http://calgary.ctvnews.ca/video?binId=1.1201960

The other great thing about attending Nationals, was seeing teammates from across the country whom I haven't seen in 2 years like Elel, Anthony, William and their coaches. 

Everyone was really encouraging.

Back at the gym I worked on rehab'ing the left leg, physio and strengthening my right hand and thumb again. Everything felt pretty slow but I had a great coach and teammates to work alongside. 

In February I had been invited to a coaching clinic as a demonstrator, in San Francisco. It would be hosted by Lee Woolls, a young boys' coach from Birmingham, U.K., whom I had trained with in August, 2014.  That was a good motivator to keep going.

Sadly, my body was saying enough. My left shoulder was injured doing parallel bars (bhavsar and tippelt) in June and seemed like it was on the slow train to healing. I worked on conditioning and basic trampoline and looked forward to going to San Francisco for the coaching clinic. It was great to see Lee Woolls again, even if I could not participate as much as I would have liked. The U.S. guys and coaches were great and I had a good time.

I took some time off at the end of July and beginning of August to recover, hopefully heal the shoulder and spend time with family. We had lots of fun outdoors hiking, biking, scootering, climbing, swimming and all that. 

When I started back to gym, the shoulder was worse and I was sore everywhere. I took it easy conditioning and getting back to events. At the same time we were able to watch a lot of the Olympic Games Artistic Gymnastics as a team which was good fun. It was especially amazing to see the Great Britain Men's team, led by Max Whitlock (AA bronze, gold on Pommels and Floor) do so amazing! Brinn Bevan came back from a double fracture in one leg in the fall to really help the team to just shy of the bronze medal, and Nile Wilson captured bronze on high bar at his first Olympics. Louis Smith took silver on pommels and Kristian Thomas was an amazing leader for the team.

Scott Morgan from B.C. did an awesome job representing Canada on Vault, Floor and Rings. And the Women's team with Brittany Rogers from our gym (and Maddie Copiak as alternate) came so close to qualifying for the team final! Ellie Black was amazing achieving a best ever for Canada in the individual all around: 5th! Shallon Olsen came 8th in the vault final and Isabella Onyshko came 8th in the balance beam final. Canada did outstanding!

In early fall, Dr. Auld, my sports doctor, ordered an MRI to see why the left shoulder wasn't responding to all the rest, therapies and physio exercises. The MRI came back showing a growth plate over use injury, no tendon or muscle damage, a small cyst on the back of the shoulder and tiny bit of bursitis. Both he and the shoulder surgeon, Dr. Lo, felt surgery or injections would not help at all and that decreasing loads and continuing physio would eventually settle it. Plus, of course, when the growth plate fuses, the issue will be gone. That was good news, but meant more and more patience.

In November, I was down to mainly 4 events: floor, vault, parallel bars (when the shoulder could handle it) and high bar. Floor and vault were coming slowly. The left leg healed, but now I had Osgood Schlatters type growth issues in the right knee mainly. Nothing serious, but the pain was annoying. My coach learned in November that I needed to do a mandatory Elite screening with new Junior compulsory routines December 4th. 

Elite Screening December 4th, 2016

It was a push just to do the simple routines on 4 events, but I did it and made out ok. I had one fall on floor, tiring at the last line.

After the screening event, I still kept trying a bit of pommel and rings each training, but could do very little. We started skills for optional routines, basic ones, so I could do 4 events at the first National Qualifier in Edmonton January 16th. I grew 2.5 cm the 10 days prior to Gym Power in Edmonton and really felt it in the right knee. We toned down vault and floor and I was able to do the 4 events.

First National Qualifier 2017

Following the qualifier, my left shoulder really tightened up. The doctor still wasn't worried - more growth and irritation. Just more patience needed. Not great to hear, but good I did no damage competing. We measured my growth for the first time in a long time and noticed I had grown over 7.5 inches since my 2014 wrist surgery (most of that the last 8 months). That explained a lot of the knee and ankle issues and maybe why the growth plate on the shoulder was still so sore.

I had a good time doing the events I was able to so far this season and will try to be patient. Growing has to stop sometime, then hopefully my body will feel better and I can get back to making gains on skills and strength. I still love this sport and believe one day I will reach my goals of representing Canada internationally.