Hi Peeps,
Anybody here had to deal with a metacarpal fracture? I fractured my RH 2nd metacarpal. Fracture was similar to a boxer's fracture. Had surgery this past Monday. Wondering about total recovery time for a fracture like this.

Thanks!
G

I had one 3 years ago. Mine was not displaced and didn't require surgery so recovery time might be different in your case.
I was in a cast for 4 weeks maybe. During this time I rode the trainer in aero and ran outside with no issues. The only problem was sweat... the cast gets pretty stinky after a while. I used a blow dryer on it after every workout but it takes a long time to dry. After some time it starts to itch as well... fun times. I used this spray and it helped a little.

I did no swimming while in the cast. There's a rubber sleeve you can put over your arm to cover the cast but it's pretty cumbersome to swim with it. I'm a good swimmer and didn't want to modify my stroke.

After the cast was removed, I had to wear a removable brace for another 1-2 weeks to protect the hand mainly until the bone is fully healed. I started swimming with that but soon enough I said f... it and swam without it and used paddles instead. Paddles take a little bit of pressure off the hand or distribute it more evenly if that makes sense... Slowly I added a few intervals with no paddles every workout.

The worst part is you lose a lot of mobility in the wrist and fingers from wearing the cast. The muscles will atrophy and it will be very stiff for a while. To get about 85% mobility in the hand took about 3-4 weeks but it really took about a year before I could fully bend my fingers or make a fist. I did physical therapy for a couple of weeks then stopped going because I could do the exercises on my own.

So the timeline was this - I broke my hand at the end of August and raced a 70.3 at the beginning of January. I swam 27:xx which I was pretty happy with considering I didn't swim for 6-7 weeks. I got pretty strong on the bike though :) went from 275W FTP to 300W during that time.

Good luck with recovery and let me know if you have any questions.