hyperextended thumbs

Question
QUESTION: In late august my 15 yr old daugther hyperextended her thumbs playing vollyball. She stayed out of the sport for a month. On the advice of a physio therapists she returned to playing with her thumbs taped. Today she injured them again. Where should we go from here? Is it better to buy a thumb brace? we did have it x rayed and nothing showed broken. However she does feel her joints are looser now. It's sooo disheartening when she loved the game. What advice can you give? thanks.

ANSWER: Hello Lisa and welcome to www.AllExperts.com

My name is Coach Tovar

To make sure that all my readers young and old can understand some of my comments, I have chosen to use simple vocabulary words and interpret any the rules for this sole purpose.

Well Lisa I have had similar injuries on my thumb, several fingers and especially on my pinkies. I dislocated my pinkies on both hands through my years playing for several volleyball club teams. The hitters usually follow through and hit your hands while eventually hurting parts of your hand. This technique also exposes the fingers to sometimes face the ball traveling towards them at high speeds with some follow through pressure from the hitters themselves. This "penetrating" techniques although very famous can easily cause injury to players and especially young ones. This is why as a coach I never teach my young and old players to penetrate the block into their opponent's court. I instead use a "soft block" or "angled block" because they give you more block height plus protects your fingers while you are looking at the blocked ball.

I am taking a guess that she hurt her thumbs by some inappropriate technique used either in practice or in a game. Receiving a fast paced serve with your fingers can cause players to hurt parts of their hand. Lifting a ball with one hand while hitting a ball with the thumb is also a common way to hurt themselves and among other things.

I would always practice with the girls college volleyball team in my hometown. Our volleyball coach would always take the injured girls to Mexico which was right next to Brownsville whenever they hyper extended any part of their body.  When the girls practiced within two days and played the next week I noticed that the players were okay. Their coach told me that there was a great person in Mexico that will give them a great massage for any part of their injuries.

I would recommend that you get someone to massage the area that have also dealt will sports injury or similar. The taping of the fingers during a game is something a lot of players do but until she can fully rest it, she will continue to keep hurting it. After several years of not playing volleyball she might re-injure it but she will be okay after a day or so.

(For my younger viewers also)
The problem your daughter is having is that her body cannot detect when to generate muscle strength quickly enough before she needs them to. It's like being blind folded and jumping from 2 feet down and not knowing how many feet down it really is. Most people will hurt themselves in this situation because their muscles cannot prepare themselves to contract. The muscles in the her thumb are sensitive and cannot generate enough strength for them to perform tasks when she needs them to. Her thumbs are blind folded right now. I would recommend that they tape her thumb with her finger and part of the wrist so that when the fingers react, the thumb will follow.

A great massage to the area will help her a lot. Building strength into her fingers and thumbs will also help her from possible future injuries. I would recommend that she does the following drills to generate strength to her fingers and thumbs.

Set a basket ball up to a wall. Let the ball land, do not set the basketball on the way down. Hold the basket ball again with your fingers like a volleyball set, set the ball up, let the basketball drop to the floor, set up again and continue this for 10 to 15 times a day while playing volleyball. Before each game have her squeeze any ball that fits in her hand that is also very soft. This will help her warm up her fingers and thumbs before actually touching a volleyball at the start of the game. Learning the proper techniques will help her bring down the chances of injuries during any game.

I personally would not consider buying a thumb brace while playing volleyball because there are too many situations where a player would have to use their fingers and their thumbs and the mistakes would probably be very evident plus a thumb brace will lend to further injuries in this sport. But she can always try a thumb brace and see how she feels and can perform with it.

I hope this answers your question. Please take the time to rate me. Any feedback you can provide for me will be great.

PS. visit my website and become a free member plus:

See ?Volleyball Offensive Systems ?over 25
See - Over 31 different serves  
See - The Volleyball Gods
Get ?FREE 28 play playbook just for being a free member
Get ?FREE 20 Volleyball T-Shirt Designs from the mind of ALIENTECH
See - Alien Attitude Balls
See - Over 145 volleyball 揃all?designs

Please visit me at www.volleyballplaystorun.com

Thank you for visiting www.AllExperts.com

Coach Tovar


---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Thanks so much Coach Tovar for your detailed reply. We read it closely. Two quick follow up questions. 1) When you said once she is away from the game 'for a few years' did you mean days? B/c one of the impt things we are wondering is now long to recovery if she stays away from v ball for a rest period.
2) also did you mean volly ball for setting/thearapy b/c she feels with the condiiton of her thumb at present a basketball would be too heavy.
You were correct in that this initial injury occured when she attempted to volly a fast coming serve from the opponent.  One last thing, when she bends both thumbs it seems her mp joint is loose now and looks a little larger than the other the other thumb. thank you.

Answer
Hello again Lisa

1) When you said once she is away from the game 'for a few years' did you mean days? B/c one of the impt things we are wondering is now long to recovery if she stays away from v ball for a rest period.

In the comment above I mean that when she gets older and one day she cannot play volleyball for that year because of other engagements she might re-injury her thumb again with other things such as grabbing the remote and hitting herself on the table. But her recovery would be from one day to the next as opposed to the way it is now plus it will not hurt as much.

These type of injuries can be with you for a lifetime but they will just feel sensitive when you hurt them again. I have played in many volleyball games where my thumb injury would appear again but I would still be able to continue in a the game but with a little discomfort. My other players would pull on my thumb for at least ten seconds. It did not hurt but it helped at that time. It all depends on the magnitude of her injury which at this point I cannot make a judgment on it.

It feels that your daughter loves to play volleyball like the rest of us and would hate to loose any time playing. That is great but for the sake of getting better, rest might be the best medicine if not the injury might get worst. In another injury I had they put Icy Hot on my hyper extension which helped me continue in the game but would affect me for the next 5 years.

If it hurts too much to practice or simply move it then I don't think it would be smart to even practice.

2) also did you mean volly ball for setting/thearapy b/c she feels with the condiiton of her thumb at present a basketball would be too heavy.

This activity is to gain strength in her fingers and thumb but if she is having trouble with the basketball or a regular volleyball then her injury might be worst than I thought. I would try the massage first and see how she feels. If she is having a lot of trouble right now then I think that it would not be a good idea for her to play volleyball at this moment if she cannot lift a regular volleyball as in a set.

Try the massage first and hopefully that will make a difference. I hope she gets well and does the smart thing for herself. Good luck and keep me posted on how she does.

Coach Tovar