Tony Hawk: The brutal injury that taught me an…
The devastating injury that modified Tony Hawk‘s perspective on fitness could’ve been averted, he told The Post, had he made the alternatives he’s making now.
“I am working out at least two times a week and that is not something I did, to be honest, until I hit my 50s and I probably would have benefited from it much sooner,” said the legendary skateboarder, who’s now 58.
“You know, I went through some pretty significant injuries … I feel like had I been more well-tuned, stronger, more warmed up, maybe that wouldn’t [have] happened, but [you] live and learn.”
Hawk said that it was one injury that was a “catalyst” to rethink how he stays lively — breaking his femur in 2022.
“That was the day I realized ‘You’re not Peter Pan,’” he said. “You can’t just do the hardest tricks on a dime.”
Tony Hawk is back to skating after breaking his femur in 2022. tiktok/@tonyhawk
The fracture that modified his life
In March 2022, Hawk was trying a McTwist — a 540 degree flip in the air — when he fell and snapped his proper femur.
A femur fracture is brutal. It’s the longest and strongest bone in your physique, and you need it to stand, stroll and transfer. It requires surgical procedure to right and takes months to heal from.
Generally, a surgeon wants to realign the bone and set it in place with a metallic rod through the middle. They could secure bits of bone with screws or wires if it broke in more than two items.
Hawk had to go through this twice.
He says he returned to skateboarding too shortly after the first surgical procedure, stopping the bone from therapeutic correctly. So he had to go back to the surgeon to right it.
“I was too cavalier in my approach to skating shortly after my injury, ignoring all warning signs – pain, mostly,” he wrote on Instagram. “It’s gonna be a slow, delicate process in the coming months but I plan to emerge stronger, wiser and more thankful than ever.”
Tony Hawk shared photos of how his femur never healed correctly after his first surgical procedure. instagram/tonyhawk
How Tony Hawk modified his fitness routine
Nowadays, Hawk is back on the vert ramp and still skates as his main method of staying lively.
“I still try to do it as much as I can. It looks a little different these days in terms of the kind of tricks and the risk factor and the impacts that I’m taking, but I’m still doing it, I think, on a professional level,” he said. Depending on the season, he’s also browsing or snowboarding.
But he says that breaking his femur was a “catalyst” to diversify his exercises to “stay fit, stay flexible, to stay strong.”
Now, he makes sure to do strength training.
“It really depends on the day because if the day consists of also skating, upper body work, and more stretching,” he said. “If I’m not skating, then it’s more overall and strength training and lower body.”
Hawk’s main exercise is still skateboarding, but also snowboards, surfs, and does weight training and stretching. Getty Images
Tony Hawk’s ideas for staying lively
Hawk is passionate about encouraging others to keep lively as they become older, and partnered with Qunol for their Move Like a Champion marketing campaign.
He doesn’t consider people need to attempt to be as lively as he it.
“It’s more just getting out there and staying in motion like keeping it moving,” he said. “That’s the key especially to when you get older — it’s so easy to be idle and it’s so easy to have sort of your muscles you take for granted.”
He suggests strolling around the neighborhood, or chasing youngsters (or grandkid, in his case).
“When I look at it, especially people my age, the ones that I’ve known for a long time, a lot of them don’t skate anymore, but they take [their health] seriously in terms of, ‘well, I gotta go swimming,’” he said. “I’ve got a friend who… He just plays Pokemon Go endlessly so that he can be walking and staying in motion.”
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