i didn't even know the human body had 11 breakable ribs on one side. my advice:

1. don't sneeze.
2. don't laugh.
3. read the forum a lot.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

I think you'd have to choose between 2 and 3...

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"I'm thinking of a number between 1 and 10, and I don't know why!"

Sorry to hear. I'm still recovering from my wipeout/possible hit by car from Saturday before memorial day. I've been to PT for possibly 8-10 weeks and I HIGHLY recommend you find a good PT place to go to. My issue was frustrating as I couldn't wear shoes for about 6-7 weeks due to my road rash/injuries. I wish I would have tried the trainer sooner than I did, but it is what it is.

Start simple. No need to rush. My Ortho suggested that I do what my body can handle. If it hurts stop. I'd offer the same. I started swimming about 9 weeks after the accident and I am focusing on only swimming now with the pull buoy to help me focus on the stroke and ease of pulling. Plus, my muscles in my shoulder and back were jacked up and still kinda are. I've gotten some dry needling done...hurts like a mother, but worth it.

Good luck and keep us updated with your progress.

How's the bike? Gotta get a new one?

Very sorry to hear about your accident. I hope you heal quickly.

I’m 63 and broke my clavicle, cracked two ribs, my sternum and other bruises two years ago. The ribs definitely held me back more than anything. I found after four or five weeks I could run at z1, but no harder. But I only cracked them and only two. After two weeks from surgery to plate the clavicle my doctor said I could pretty much do whatever I felt like I could, other than moving my arm in a couple of ways (across my body and rising it). I rode zwift a lot instead of outside until most of the pain was gone.

I would trust what your doctor says and stick with that.

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Not a coach. Not a FOP Tri/swimmer/biker/runner. Barely a MOP AGer.
But I'm learning and making progress.

Bike is remarkably ok , Cervelo Caledonia 5 with just small cosmetic damages .

Mine was a Cervelo R5, and also came out really well.

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Not a coach. Not a FOP Tri/swimmer/biker/runner. Barely a MOP AGer.
But I'm learning and making progress.

speedy recovery to you - dont rush back but hurry slowly

I've broken a ton of ribs and my clavicle.

Ribs are weird. I've had multiple buckle fractures and within 24h post fracturing them they were pain free. I've bruised ribs where 6 weeks later still painful.

The clavicle is a lot easier, plate screws you'll be good to go. Ribs.......oh man could be 6d could be 10 weeks.

Heal up quickly.

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Brian Stover USAT LII
Accelerate3 Coaching
Insta

Use the time to do lower limb strength training

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Andrew Garwood
http://www.2xu.com
http://www.newtonrunning.com
http://www.ascendsport.com.au

In October I broke my clavicle and 6 ribs, all the way through. Hospital stay lasted 2 weeks because my lung collapsed and took a while to close back up.

PT started after 2 weeks, so right after leaving the hospital.

Doc said no cycling for 3 weeks with weight on my arms because of the clavicle. Recumbent bike at a gym would be fine but I only have a TT bike at home on the trainer.

First run at week 4. Ribs were okay, but shoulder felt tight during arm swing.

Lots of discomfort initially but by week 7 or 8, my fitness was mostly back to normal.

I'm in my 30s, so it could look a bit slower for you.

2years ago (@52), in one incident, I broke my scapula, collarbone (for the 4th time), ribs 2 thru 7 & punctured my lung, all on my right side. I was a mess for 7-10days. And there's no support (casts, etc.) for these injuries either. Sleeping in a recliner was my only option. I'm also a... wait, I was only a side sleeper too. That changed. Now I can sleep flat because, once I was able to move from the recliner to bed, flat was the only way for 6weeks-ish. Any subconscious movement and I was awake like someone stabbed me. It wasn't a good time.

Like mentioned earlier, ribs are a roll of the dice be it they're bruised, fractured or broken. As I understand it, rib pain comes from soft tissue damage that holds the whole set together. Soft tissue damage can easily take 2-3 times as long to heal as broken bones. All that said, rib damage seems to be pretty unique to the particular damage; much harder to predict recovery time versus just a clean broken clavicle (4-6weeks).

My lung healed first. That was about 2-3days. I recall being junk for ~10weeks. Junk meaning unable to be confident in any movement abnormal to basic daily life, i.e., heavy breathing from cardio - out (whenever I tried to breath deep my ribs said "nope"). Any extra weight bearing by my upper body - out. Any twisting or core work - out. My scapula healed next, followed by my ribs. My clavicle ultimately needed to be plated w/a bone graft from my hip as the now 2pc bone wouldn't mend itself back together, which set me back another 6-8weeks if I recall correctly, but that surgical procedure was well after the rest healed.

I advise supporting your clavicle healing first & foremost. Yes, your ribs will suck, maybe for a longer time, but they almost always come back together efficiently. Your collarbone on the other hand, coming from someone who's did not heal on its own, it SUCKS having an extra, unsupported, joint between collarbone ends. I got used to the pain, and then I started back swimming with it. Every stroke I could hear (through the water) the bones grinding against each other and getting used to that & the stabbing pain (also every stroke) took awhile. Oh, and when you have an extra unintended joint in your collarbone, your trap & rhomboid muscles change to try & compensate for your excess shoulder mobility. Those muscles are still problematic for me today and my graft/plating procedure was basically a year ago.

After all of that ^^^ just be as patient as you can and support your body repairing itself. If that only takes 6weeks, consider yourself a lotto winner, but be prepared for it to take 3months or longer. Unless your a masochist, you'll know when you can get back to whatever activity you want to pursue. In my case, I forced swimming once my ortho told me I was SOL on my collarbone healing on its own and it was going to take 4-5months to schedule plating.

Sorry for your injuries. Hope this helps.

Thank you for your comments , I can see early on how tricky the clavicle issue .I go to see the surgeon in early Sept to see if the fusion is starting to form/not form .

Sorry to hear it. Will you ride outside again once healed?

really sorry to hear. Ribs are painful! 2cent advice is to give it longer to heal than you think it needs. Walking is a great place to start. I ended up getting really into online chess. Finding a hobby to keep the brain engaged and distracted from Tri helped me. Take care and rest well!

Now that is the million dollar question , I love being outside and have ridden and ran for the last 40 years .
This has made me think that I was very fortunate to escape with the injuries as it could have been a lot a lot worse .
Just going to try and get back to full range of motion and have started walking a little , I can see myself using Zwift again but riding in a group again on the road hmmmmmm , not sure .

The title of your post struck a chord with me. I broke a clavicle and 9 ribs in a mountain bike race 2 years ago. As far as clavicle pain, and I did not have surgery, it was too painful to swim for at least 4 months. Today it is not an issue swimming or anything else. My experience with ribs would not be relevant to you because it was recommended that I have surgery and 4 ribs repaired with titanium strips/screws. Called rib fixation. As promised my rib pain diminished immediately by 50% or so, but still took several months to sleep normally on side. Started riding trainer though almost immediately. To my frustration, I eventually discovered the injury and/or surgery has permanently diminished my lung capacity and right diaphragm movement. Three different medical groups have no answers or solutions for me. I’m still cycling, running and swimming but very diminished paces, especially for running. Racing is out of the question. Hoping to just enjoy some gravel events at a leisurely pace. Good luck to you and I am sure you will be fine, feel your way through it. I would dissuade anyone from having the surgery I did, at least endurance athletes. Glad you didn’t do that.

I recently broke 9 ribs after getting hit by a car on my bike. I also jacked up shoulder but it is mostly a strain. The ribs are now on week 7 and are healing nicely but certain movements are a bit painful. I was told to by the hospital PT to sleep sitting up a bit so I got a wedge pillow through Amazon and sleep at maybe a 25-30 degree angle. That helped tremendously with sleep since laying flat was painful. I can finally sleep for awhile on that side, and get up and off the floor. I attempted to swim (no go with shoulder), jogging (no go with shoulder and I was told to wait until ribs heal more). I mostly walk, stair mill and plan to start on the trainer on the bike. I would rather be safe and have things heal correctly than have a glitchy shoulder injury that haunts me everytime I swim....

I am super nervous about being on the road on a bike again with or without a group. Every driver (or alot of people that is) are distracted and not watching for cyclists on the road.....

Good luck in your recovery.

KK

Just start with my usual disclaimer here. I am an MD, but trauma is no longer an area I work in much.
At 68 that is a pretty nasty crash, just on the injuries sustained.
Your recovery, secondary to your age, is going to be slower than that if you were 30-40 years younger. It is sometimes easy to under-estimate the toll that injuries such as this put on your body and the time taken to get back to full strength (if you can actually get back to where you were prior to the smash).
With the ribs, the key issues will be pain associated with the fractures and how that might limit your breathing under load, as well as any underlying lung injuries associated with the crash. The clavicle is a little trickier as it depends on a few things in relation to how it has fractured and how it is being managed. Clavicles are tricky as you need to be careful to avoid a non-union of the fracture.
It might not be the information you are wanting to hear, but I would imagine you are looking at 3-6 months before you can get back to reasonable activity levels for yourself. Riding outdoors is going to be tricky with the clavicle fracture-do you have access to an indoor smart trainer?
From rather bitter experience after injury, try to reset yourself mentally and try not to rush getting back to where you want to be, at the expense of potentially making things worse. It is a decent crash you have had (despite the bike being OK!) and I am glad you have been able to come away as well as what you have done.

July 10, 2022 (I was 62 years old) I had a bike crash where I broke my clavicle, 2 ribs and suffered from painful road rash. In addition, I picked up an upper respiratory infection in the ER so I had a cough for 7-10 days that exacerbated the pain from the broken ribs and clavicle. The clavicle was broken on the medial end so surgery was not an option.

Looking over my training log, here are my milestones:

at 3 weeks, I was walking up to an hour per day and doing an hour of light strength training (I was still in a sling)
at 4 weeks, I was running in a pool
at 6 weeks, I was kicking with a kick board. The sling came off and I started PT.
at 7 weeks, I started back running and riding the trainer
at 10 weeks, I was back to masters swimming
at 11 weeks, I was back to riding outdoors
5 months post crash, I raced a sprint and half distance triathlon on back to back days. These were 2 of my best races in 38 years in the sport.

Early on I was discouraged with my recovery. I was diligent about my PT and overall pleased with my comeback. My wife kept reminding me- comeback trumps setback.

Be patient, you will recover.

Best sleep might be in a recliner,

I had lung surgery where they use a jacking device to spread the ribs apart and the pain for a few weeks was excruciating. Sleeping on a bed was not possible as the body weight of my upper body weighs on the ribs.
Those ribs never healed back in proper alignment unfortunately and I have tightness in the area from the scar tissue.

Best wishes for your recovery. That sounds brutal. How did you crash?

I have no advice other than take it slow and find a good DPT. As my surgeon recently told me during a follow up appointment: don’t be dumb; lots of fit, athletic people screw up a perfectly good recovery by thinking they are good to go before I tell them that they are.

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*****
"In case of flood climb to safety"

Thx for the reply ,how did I crash ? 3 man pace line with approx 12”-15” between each other wheel at 31km per hour .I was 3rd the other two guys I have ridden with for 10 years and at least 500 rides , I trust them .In this case the first guy did not see the piece of asphalt in the road in time to give the signal and move around as he saw it at the last minute , second guy just saw it and me not so much ! Hit it full on lost control went down hit the road shoulder then catapulted into the ditch very hard .
Yes I agree on being smart with the recovery but it’s so difficult not do anything.

I don't see that OP said all on one side. That is a lot of ribs. I don't think one would break 11 ribs on one side. The highest upper ribs don't break very easily and the lower ones are kinds floating and likely would just move.

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They constantly try to escape from the darkness outside and within
Dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good T.S. Eliot

So sorry to hear this.

I got hit last September (coming up on the 1 year mark). I broke 3 ribs, my scapula, and obliterated my collarbone. I got a plate and 8 screws, but the break was so bad that bone still isn't fully healed (comminuted fracture, broken into 6 pieces with a couple bone pieces being completely obliterated).

The ribs took about 6, 7 weeks to feel better. Having a pillow to hug if I needed to cough was...slightly helpful. It just sucks, and really all you can do is just wait it out. The collarbone...that's still ongoing. Still doing PT on it, still having a ton of muscle issues/spasms, still can't do certain things (mostly lifting, but endurance in the shoulder took a big hit, so i'm not really swimming more than 2k in a session yet). So I can't really advise on the collarbone, since mine was such a bad and traumatic break.

I was allowed to walk, which I did almost every day. The surgeon said I could get on the trainer as soon as I felt like I could handle the pressure of leaning on the handlebars. I think I got on about...3 or so weeks post-surgery? I wasn't allowed to run until my 6 week surgery follow up. Then I could jog to tolerance, which I handled fairly well except for running downhill. I had to walk downhills until December, because the jarring of my shoulder hurt. I wasn't cleared for anything in the pool until December - not even kicking, sculling, or one arm drills. I wasn't cleared to ride outside until March, 6 months post crash.