Interview: Wyn Masters on Racing World Cups With a Fractured Spine in 2020
Racing a World Cup season is hard enough on its own, but this week Wyn Masters revealed he had been racing since Maribor with an undiagnosed thoracic compression fracture on his spine. He believes he picked up the injury in his first practice run at the second race that weekend after sliding out on a clump of roots. He tried to hold on and ride it out but the force of all his weight being put through his spine led to the fracture. The crash left him struggling to walk but, as riding felt less painful, he persevered on and even qualified for Sunday's finals later that same day.
Wyn saw out the rest of the season riding with a decent amount of pain and a lot of strapping before heading to the UK to spend the winter riding its famous slop. He forgot about his back pain on all but the coldest days but a strain picked up at the gym saw him in the chiropractor's office with yet more back troubles. After Wyn mentioned the crash, he got an x-ray from the doctor and the fracture was revealed.
The fracture had already healed and Wyn is now on a program of rest and recuperation before getting back to exploring the best of the UK's riding. While he's taking some time out, we fired over some questions to get the full story:
What do you remember of the crash in Maribor? Did you take any time off or get any treatment after it?
It was my first run for the second race in Maribor and I watched a few people ride this section for a few minutes before committing to a line. The previous evening I didn’t have time for the course walk after finishing up the WynTV videos so I think I didn’t consider that I would slip on those roots coming into that section. It threw me off balance pretty good when I was trying to dab with my left foot in order to get back on line but my right foot blew out of the pedal and from there it was all downhill.
Normally in a situation like this, it's best to get off the brakes and try to ride it out. You often can get back on line and not crash, but this time letting go of the bike sooner would have been a better option as then I wouldn’t have tweaked my back. But I’d say if I was to do it again I’d still try to ride it out as more often than not that approach has worked out for me.
Literally, as I was getting up off the ground, Spanish junior Pau Menoyo came through, slipped on the same root also had a heavy crash. It definitely knocked the wind out of me pretty good and took a while to get up and get back on but I pushed back up and rolled the section pretty slowly after. Luckily, John Lawlor was there filming for VitalRAW and also my team filmer Jules Bellot was there and caught the whole thing on camera, so everyone can enjoy my scorpion and the social media armchair experts can tell me how I should have let the bike go when I crashed haha!
Was your back sore all through the race season?
Yeah, for those two remaining days in Maribor I was walking like an old man and had some pain but the pain was probably worse walking than riding which was a bonus. Our team soigneur Greg got my back taped up pretty good too which made a good difference in support but I struggled a fair bit at the second race in Maribor which was disappointing at the time as I felt like I was building momentum at the first one there. Now looking back I have more understanding why I was struggling though. Then for the two races in Lousã things were too bad, just that spot in my back was sore to touch. From then on [it has been] sore on cold days too.
My brother Ed also broke his Ulna Styloid in his wrist in his first practice run of race 1 at Maribor and then went on to smoke me both races in the battle of the brothers, but maybe we need to work on our first practice runs! Although I did once help Loic Bruni off the track from a first-run crash so you could say it happens to the best of us...
What made you go to the chiropractor last week?
Actually, I strained my back in the gym last Monday and was in pain from that so went to get it checked out. The chiropractor mentioned that it would be due to my spinal curvature becoming pretty straight due to years of riding and not enough stretching, something I definitely need to work on. Since I was there, I mentioned the crash in Maribor so he also x-rayed that area of my back, he was like, "well, I can see why you were sore you had a compression fracture right here".
Is the fracture healed now? What symptoms are you still feeling?
Yeah, he said now it's all good although it’s now looking like more of a wedge due to the compression. Actually, after a few treatments things are improving but I now have quite a bit of work to do to get my posture and spinal curvature looking better. I just have the lower back strain now but that's improving well so I look forward to getting back into it and some more UK winter slop. Actually, a couple of weeks off probably do me good as I struggle to take much time off otherwise, I just enjoy getting out on the bike too much!
Will the injury require surgery or anything like that in the future?
No, luckily it's nothing serious and I just need to now work on getting my back mobility moving a bit better. Actually it’s not a bad thing cause I don’t think I would have been so focussed on this otherwise until it became an issue later on.
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Regardless, I think it goes to show how focussed and hardcore a rider such as Wyn is. Respect!
On the flip side, some of the best treatment I've ever gotten for recovery was from a chiropractor. Definitely do your research and get references before you let someone work on you.
I've done lots of those laser treatments when I was doing triathlon because I was willing to do anything to stay well. I'm not convinced it did anything for me. We would need a double blind, randomized, controlled study for worthy data.
As others have stated, Mechanical physio/ART is where the value is. Anything laser, acupuncture, spine manipulation is highly questionable.
Next, let's talk about zamzam water...
good on you mate.
Keep up the hustle.
Did I mention regular doctors always wanted to just prescribe addictive muscle relaxers and pain meds instead actually treating the injury with therapy and recovery routines? Scoff all you want, but there are some really good chiro's out there. I've had way worse experiences with regular doctors with terrible bedside manner and no time to actually listen or fix the problem.
I realize the history of it is weird, and to be honest, I never saw that weird stuff until it was mentioned right here on these forums by the people who always put it down. I haven't been to a chiro in over a decade since I've had no need. But, I wouldn't hesitate to go again if warranted. Massages do not help in the same way as chiro.
I also have found a really good, caring doctor who doesn't just reach for a pill for treatment.
My .02
Downvote away...
youtu.be/DBbmNAZWq-E
Stretching is key to a happy, pain-free life in my experience.
A) that's one hell of a painful crash to watch
B) don't stress your back on injured, spines are no joke
C) chiropractors are on the same scientific level as xamans. Don't use them, its a scam
Wait are there countries in which someone that is not a radiologist can give you a xrays ?!
1)Didn't recognize the injury. Ok well here is where mandatory post race check ins and sign off can help prevent unnecessary damage. Help prevent CTE, worsening fractures, worsening soft tissue tears, and just in general take care of the people first.
2)Pay them a salary that makes a living. This takes the motivation off racing every run and takes into account the dangers of the sport and the support required to treat these athletes like people and not disposable commodities. I mean we are all buying outrageously priced bikes and companies are making some serious dough.
3)Healthcare. Goes along with the above but full medical coverage for all allied health services. Chiro, massage, PT, OT, MD services, eye, dental and pharm care. Not one, all.
4)Culture? Pretty tough group in MTB and tough as nails at the pro level. We all need to take health and longevity seriously and know that "pushing" through injuries is a young persons naive game to play. Compression fracture will catch up with you wyn, hope you recover well and all the best
from a fan
2) I am paid a salary that makes a living, thankfully GT are good with this for their athletes and they appreciate the work I do for them. I myself live for and love racing still so I often tend to get on with things rather than head straight to get checked out.
3) I have full health insurance and this is a prerequisite to your international license being issued, so everyone has to have this in order to compete at a World cup event.
4) I would agree partially with this but I have pulled myself out of several events due to head injuries and promote others to do the same and for people to be more aware of the dangers of concussions. At this stage no it wont catch up with me with the right rehab and working on my flexibility and ROM it won't be an issue if anything its now a good thing as I am now more focussed on this. Unfortunately this sport is sometimes dangerous and occasionally you pay the price, but if it was anything more painful I would have been checked out by a medical team, but I would never have become a pro rider if I had to get checked out everytime I crashed, thats just what comes with the nature of the sport sometimes, watch any of the highlight videos there are always some crashes, and actually this one wasn't such a hard crash just more awkward.
TBH I see the longterm issues in Rugby or NFL much much more dangerous than MTB for the longterm health of the athletes post professional career.
With the first argument my concern is that these aches and pains can be too easily dismissed and while I greatly enjoy the sport I value health of the rider even more. For instance there is pain, peri-spinal pain, central tenderness, acute vs delayed onset and other signs that help practitioners sort out more benign soft tissue vs fracture vs MSK and neurological injury. With 20/20 hindsight do you think a visit to the race medic or available course medical profession would have changed anything? You mentioned a time limit between practice and quali as a barrier to care, are there any other barriers you see? I do not want to sound paternalistic and the riders know their body but I wonder if you have suggestions for maybe some hard limits for medical probationary periods ie. if there is a known fracture not returning before the bones have time to fully ossify or enforcement of post concussion protocols?
IMHO people have the right to live at risk as long as they are of sound mind and not under any duress.
I am hoping you are right and the increased frequency of head trauma seen in contact sports is the difference that might separate MTB from the injury rates seen in NFL, rugby, etc. Freeride, slope style, or DH WCI racers, hard slams are hard slams and the internal coup contrecoup cannot be understated as a risk factor for CTE. It also seems like the bar is being raised with higher speeds and bigger features as MTB evolves as a sport thereby increasing the relative risk for increased severity and frequency of crashes.
cheers
PS it was a hot dry 36 degrees in CHCH yesterday
PS it was a rainy 7 degrees here yesterday haha
TBH a visit to an onsite race medic wouldn't have changed anything for me in this situation, the only way that it would potentially is if they had an onsite x-ray but we are not at that level yet. They have started to bring in more and more protocols around concussion but general injury there isn't so much, and honestly you would find many stories of pro sports people competing whilst injured, the worst case I have seen was in MotoGP with Marc Marquez trying to compete 2 days after serious elbow surgery last year which has backfired big time and now he is struggling to recover from it now, but this is in a sport with the highest level of medical support too, pro athlete mindset is really doing anything to compete, and I guess that is why they become professional in their chosen sport.
Travis Pastrana did some cool research with his nitro circus crew at the Cooper Clinic a clinic specialising in CTE and with the their findings the repeated head knocks of contact sport seemed to be much more damaging that the occasional crashes we have in our sport, but concussion knowledge and research is something I am really passionate about and interested to learn more I think there is way to little knowledge shared on this topic.
All the best Wyn!
I did three days of rest/ice and it felt so much better after a full week of taking it easy...so I got impatient, went out and rode and now I'm chilling on the sofa with an ice pack lol.
Think I'll get booked in!
Anyway, all academic, just so long as you’re on the mend and don’t miss out on too much British winter mud!
Easy,
you simply should have comitted to that Superman seat bonk instead of chicken out half the way.
You are welcome!