Poi spinning injuries

greetings ... I'm a physiotherapy student/poi twirler inquiring into poi related injuries - you know like shoulders and wrists that hurt after spinning too much. Any descriptions of yer injuries will be helpful in my research. My intention is to design a program specifically for poi to help existing injuries heal and prevent further ones ... yer feedback is appreciated wooooosh J-Me

Burns, burns and more burns...

I find my back hurts a bit sometimes after spinning for a while with my heavier equipment as well...(might have something to do with some of the moves I do and the fact that I already have a bad back).

I often get blisters on the first two fingers of both hands. (Takes a good 2 hours of spinning though)

I would have thought there are many other factors to think about before you can get an idea of what a ‘typical’ injury/strain might be.

I work in an office using computers all day so my upper body doesn’t get much of a work out. I do find my upper arms get a bit week after more than 20 minutes spinning poi (10 minutes with staff), particularly when I’m learning a new move as I tend to exaggerate my movements more.

Contact juggling helps my wrists a lot (I’ve broken them in the past and otherwise messed them up), but I’m sure poi does in a less noticeable way.

It’d be interesting to see the final outcome

I had to quit spinning staff because it really agrivated the burcitis (sp?) in my shoulders (took about 6 months to do so, but after it only takes a little bit -maybe 10 minutes - of staff spinning to make my shoulder joint ache for a day or two), but poi does not do this. I also find poi helped solve the carpel tunnel thing and has actually imroved my should problems too. I do strain my back a bit from it, but that is because I do very deep back bends whilst poiing.

I have a friend in austin who had to quit poi because it wrecked her wrists - she went exclusively to staff because of that, in contrast to my story.

I think it also depends on how you spin and what kind of general flexibility you have...

I change my style a lot during my routine and I've noticed that one of the primary things to change is the way I move my wrists. (flexible/rigid etc...) I would imagine that if you were to maintain rigidity throughout, it would affect your wrists in the short term, but if they remain flexible, it may affect them in the long run.

But please let us know your findings. Sounds very interesting

i injured my shoulder spinng staff and double staff last week. we were spinning pretty much non stop for four hours. Im like that, as long as there is fuel i will keep going.

my shoulder is still killing me. feels like its right inside my shoulder too. feels more like the pain you suffer from a really hard workout though. i used to get very stiff after martial arts training and it feels like something simliar. I dont think i pulled anything, rather i think i overworked it. With any luck it will be better by saturday. *fingers crossed*

feel free ot pm me or something if you think i might be able to give you more details.

maybe you could suggest some excersices that might help out spinners on a general level?

yup - that shoulder pain you describe is called bursidis (no idea how to spell it) and it basically comes from an inflamed shoulder joint - rest it till it feels better, then take it easy for while before going back to your four hour stints.

baseball players also get this in their shoulders (where I orginally developed the problem), and tennis players get it in their elbows (tennis elbow). It is a form of repetitve stress injury basically. I'm sure our thread intiator can say more about it and correct me where I am not entirely accurate...

Welcome to HoP J-Me

I had the same shoulder injury not too long ago. Every time I would start spinning it would flare up. This went on for about two weeks before I decided to give it a rest. After five days of laying off the poi, the pain was gone and hasn't come back.

I used to get blisters all the time from heavy nylon finger loops but switching to leather loops fixed that immediately.

Word,
I had really bad rotator cuff injury from getting smacked off my bycicle by a car, and I found that lots of poi really helped!
Much easier to stick with than the excersizes that the physio perscribed, and now I have more flexibilty in my shoulders than before the accident ;-)

I used to get debilitating headaches/neck pain, caused in part no doubt by my large chest. I still get this since I took up poi, but not nearly as much. At first, I used to get really sore after spinning, but I'm much better now, especially since I got the hang of the overhead moves, like chasing the sun, overhead and alternating butterfly, and so on. It's like I'm working and stretching muscles that weren't getting enough of that before.

It's almost like my crane training- the first couple of days of seat time with an actual crane left me tied up stiffer than I could remember being in a long time..But once I got used to hauling on those levers, things got so much better, and eventually I was craning happy and pain-free. Believe me, in the words of my crane instructor, some of those mobile cranes need to be run like you hate them- the levers really need to be yanked and hauled on. But Tower cranes are a different beast- nice little joysticks that you "kiss and caress".

Poi and craning have something in common- they tend to work muscles that may normally be underused, but after some initial pain, you get used to it, and perhaps end up even better than you were.

Tower operators have been known to get bad backs, though. I will need to work at protecting myself from this!

with any repetetive motions, the forces will be transmitted throughout the body and the weakest link in the chain will be exploited. weak links could be due to muscles imbalance (tight, short, weak, or uncoordinated), anatomical malalignment, previous injury and so on ... it seems from the feedback that spinning has triggered injuries but also in some cases helped reduce people's pain. I reckon poi could be a sweet therapy for some people! some general advice that will work for all people :

before you get into heavy spinning on a given day WARM UP yer body!! dance, swing yer arms around, jump - anything to warm yer core temperature up just a bit. warm joints are less likely to become sore joints! after spinning lightly for a few minutes, pause and stretch out yer arm, back and chest muscles. specific exercises to increase stability in the shoulder are important but too complicated to explain here. if you feel a sore spot after spinning it's likely due to inflamation from the repetetive stress. make ICE is yer friend for the next 20 minutes!

I will be working with a guy who owns a poi studio to develop a specific warm up for poi spinning. may be done in a few months time and I'll convey the info on to everyone whenever I have it. In the mean time keep the injury stories coming as it will help me to get a better sense of what people need.

safe spinning All

J-Me

I've got to report that after two years of spending way to much time spinning both poi and staff,,,,zero injuries. Well, other than the typical impact injuries that is. I do warm up before every session first with one poi, which gives me opportunity to not only think about my planes,, but to explore the full range of motion in my arms and shoulders.

Next, I'll switch to a staff for a few minutes, spinning very slowly and concentrating on developing a more stable stance. This helps loosen up my back and legs and I'm hoping it's going to improve my balance at the same time. Then it's on to two poi, same attention paid to stance and balance and this is where I've actually found a use for the reverse five beat weave, it's excellent for loosening up the wrists.

But if something starts to hurt, I simply stop doing it, until next time, I find it more effective to work on a new move until it becomes weak and uncoordinated, rather than forcing it and gritting through any pain that may result. For example, lately I've been working on the horizontal buzzsaw, down low with one knee bent and as close to the ground as I can get it, first left hand on top, then switch, right hand on top, switch back.Yesterday I found I could keep this up for about 30 seconds,,two days ago it was 15 seconds, today it may be 45 seconds, but I quit when it gets messy. I'll spin some other pattern for a while, then come back to it.

Works for me anyways,and speaking as someone who spends most of his day sitting on his arse in a studio, paying absolutely no attention whatsoever to my body positioning, I've gotta say that spinning is a great way to work out the aches and pains I get from doing ,,.that

Hi J-Me,

I had a bit of tennis elbow last year, but I’m not sure if it was caused by a knock, lifting a heavy object or a repetitive strain injury. One poi injury, that I’m told is common, is to pop out the knee joint (I think?) when turning quickly.

Your research sounds interesting as injuries, especially the repetitive type, are a nightmare. Like, I’ve heard about jugglers that have had to stop juggling after a few years due to rsi. Though, I’m not sure what you mean when you say “ a program designed specifically for poi to help existing injuries heal and prevent further ones”.

Do you mean warm-up exercises and remedial exercises? Because I would be interested in learning the reason for any differences between what your research comes up, compared to the warm-up exercises already published in existing club and poi books ie. We might be doing incorrect warm-ups.

Also, clubs, which are swung in a similar fashioned to poi, was once a part of physical education and gymnastics training and are still used in Calisthenics. I’m also told that clubs are still sometimes used by physiotherapists to cure mild wrist sprains.

cheers

Hi J-Me.

I have very nearly escaped injury on a few occasions whilst swinging poi.
I have had the poi come round and hit me right in the eyes on a number of occasions. its a good thing i wear glasses.

Perhaps i should buy some of those old pilots goggles to wear whilst spinning, i am starting to fear for my glasses

i have extremely bad back ache which i got from quite a serious injury in tae kwon do,which i had to quit in result of this bloody back

however i have sort of fixed it by learning btb weaves etc, starting off by doing them without moving my back too much and over time as i have become more confident with these moves exadurated the movements which have previously given me back aches

so my only bit of advice is if it hurts to do something make the movement less where it hurts and gradually build it up to bending etc further and further

I get a lot of pain in my left wrist from using heavy fire poi. It starts in the 3rd finger of my left hand, and then soon, my whole wrist gets painful. I can feel a strain in the 3rd finger on my right hand too, but it never seems to get worse than that on my right side.

I also used to get stiff shoulders, but when i got more used to spinning heavy poi regularly, and stretching out first, that went away.

Plus several big bruises from hitting myself with monkey fists (when not lit, thankfully).

Good luck with your research!

Helen

otherr than saying the same again...burns,i generally get quite tight in the shoulders and i can get a sort of cramp in my hands if i am spinning for a long time.

I forgot about this one...I have a bad habit, well actually a few, most of them are not spinning related I tend to turn mostly to my left. This hasn't been much of a problem until we rented an indoor practice space, one where we have to take our shoes off.

I find that by the end of the evening my left foot is sore because that's the one I pivot on. This hasn't caused me any grief in the past, except for grinding holes in the bottom of my left shoe, but lately I've been working on trying to correct this with a good deal of success. Last practice session I vowed to turn only to the right and what do you know? my left foot was fine at the end of the evening.

Just another point in favour of the idea of learning and practicing every move and turn In both directions