Is it when one person is grossly stronger than the other, or when two people are too evenly matched? Or is it caused by bad form/technique? Do you have to have particularly weak bones?
I like to armwrestle occasionally for fun but I know the spiral breaks that happen during armwrestling are particularly nasty, painful, and hard to fix.
If there really aren’t any warning signs or ways to help lower the risk then I might reconsider armwrestling. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t do it very often at all, but every once in awhile the subject comes up and then everyone wants to do it for a couple days before getting bored of it again.
I just had a discussion with a coworker who’se both a little guy and was known as an arm-breaker in college. I believe he said that the break was a result of tension being too much for the arm to handle, generally breaking above the elbow. The break would be caused when there are two evenly-matched people who are both relatively strong (perhaps that isn’t the correct word, since we all know that technique plays a great role in this oldest of bar-contests).
Given the descriptions I’ve heard of spiral breaks and their lasting effects, I’m going to stick to my sports-related injuries of broken noses, cauliflower ears, busted toes, sprained necks, dislocated… OK, maybe I should take up arm wrestling…
My GF’s grandmother’s radius and ulna snapped like dry kindling in the first minute of our match last Thanksgiving. Three metacarpals subsequently shattered when I slammed her fist to the table. The doc said it was due to calcium loss post menopause. He said this was no surprise, given her 87 years and poor overall health. Her passing during surgery to repair the damage was likewise not a surprise. Nevertheless, I got that last piece of pie.