Aches, Pains, Treaments Cures and Snake oil.

Our club's catchment area is so large that it is difficult to persuade people to come along for the likes of fitness sessions (tho' the did turn out in strength for a one-off talk by Steve Cockerill).

I presume you guys who organise such sessions have a local core membership? If not, how do you lure them along? Beer is a given, but they have to drive...

Voltarol (actually the Lloyds chemist version) has worked wonders for me. I think it is the anti inflammatory part of it that has the longer term use, but you are quite right that it doesn't mean all is OK. For me, the pain relief meant that I could keep moving, which I needed to do in order not to have my back stiffen up and then pull again. All depends what is wrong, I guess. The tablets I was given for the same job made me feel sick to the stomach.

You don't have to tell me not to take voltarol, I did once and immediately felt a pain in the kidneys I have in the past snowboarded with Ibuprofen after an accident when our van left the road on the way up the mountain (we were saved from a precipice by a tree bouncing us back onto the road, another of the nine lost, I've only got about two left by my reckoning.

There's a speed sailing girl osteopath Zara Davis, she gave me a work over once, it feels amazing but just for a short while after then it all goes back as stiff as ever.

The Chinese guy gave me the right advice for my situation, I exercise regularly anyway, but what i don't do enough of is stretch and the thing that gets us at our age is tendons. they obviously don't stretch because of the job they do, (which is to use the muscle power to make things do things) so stretching them slowly is a good thing, they get a bit brittle I guess is the description, so if you suddenly do something (like stupid bowling for cricket you haven't done since a kid) you can pull them.

I'm actually considering Pilates, wether I'll be able to do it and keep a straight face (there are normally chicks about and you can't prevent yourself ogling them, then your mate catches your eye doing it and it's fits of childish giggles.) or maybe I'll see if I can't get one to do a stretching for sailing night once a week through the winter, with copious recovery beer stimulant after..

Who knows, I'm on it anyway, thanks for all the excellent advice.

Graeme ... I would recomend going to a good osteopath, we have one in our fleet who understands sailing injuries.  Once you are sorted get a trainer and go to the gym, I have had no serious injuries since I have made an effort to get and keep fit.  Avoid steroids, I have a quite serious eye complaint which might be attributable from taking steroids from a nebuliser.  Avoid having to take Volterol or painkillers to go sailing ... your body is telling you something is wrong when it is hurting.

Perhaps my experience was exceptional but for half of my stay I was on an assessment ward having been admitted as an emergency, well sort of. While on that ward I was perfectly fit and aware of what was going on around me. Most of the admissions were men who had obviously engineered their own downfall through smoking, drinking and general personal abuse. However close to death they may have looked upon admission the staff injected them with stuff, administered to them in a personal way, fed them and by some miracle returned them to life. Some of them were difficult and abusive, how would you feel as a member of the medical staff if a grossly overweight patient suffering from empacemia insisted on dragging himself out side for a fag? I never heard a cross word and I never  saw anything but understanding and kindness. Had it been me I would have kicked the stupid git in the ornamental lake!