I've been preaching the importance of stretching forever. As an active skier, mountain biker and disc golfer, I've seen plenty of injuries that could have been avoided with a few simple minutes of stretching. It's too bad I don't always take my own advice.
This spring I arrived at a fairly large regional tournament, the first biggie of the year. Friends I hadn't seen in months were arriving in groups of two or three, and we were all pumped to see each other, catch up on news, and once again test our disc golfing skills. Game on, dawg.
My normal pre-tournament ritual is to get registered, stretch while yakking with friends, 
then find a quiet place where I can throw two bags of drives, a bag of up shots, and then putt until the player's meeting.
The problem this time was that I hadn't played this particular course in over three years, and wanted to check out as many holes as possible before the start. Because of the large turnout, a number of temp holes had been set up as well, compounding the problem. I hooked up with a guy who knew the course, and we headed out.
No, I never stretched.
I was suffering from a lack of sleep, but otherwise felt pretty good. The tournament would be two rounds of 27.
I shot typically and poorly in the first round, turning in a -3, then settled down and carded a -9 in the second.
It had been a snowy winter, and months since I had played so many holes in one day. I headed home after the awards a little sore, but apparently no worse for the wear. Things would go south the next day.
Like most of us, a good tournament gets me pumped up for more, and the following day I was out for a quick round before dinner. My arm was a little sorer, but I wasn't concerned. I was in a hurry, and anxious to throw. I swung my arm around a little bit, but didn't properly stretch out. Hey, it's just a quick casual round, right?
Wrong. The muscles in my throwing arm were now especially tight after the abuse of the previous day.
The first hole is a long wooded corridor, one that I can reach on a good day. I pulled hard with a deuce in mind. The arm fully extended on release then combined with a poor follow through, and the explosion of pain was instantaneous. The last time I felt that much pain was during a skiing accident, an aborted back flip which had resulted in a dislocated shoulder. This time the pain ran along the inside of my arm, from just below the elbow and up into the bicep. I picked up my drive (which would have been a deuce, had I bothered to putt) and went home.
I’ve been lucky to have never had a long-term physical injury. Okay, so my arm was hurting at the moment, but it wouldn’t last, would it? Two days later I was back on the course, with the same result: one drive, blinding pain, and a frustrating drive home. Okay, this was bad, and I had just compounded the problem by stressing it even more.
It appeared that I had torn the bicep, or some related tendon. After a week of springtime weather I couldn’t take it anymore, and showed up at a league event with a monstrous disc golf jones and high hopes. Nope, no chance of driving, but I could still throw little flick rollers, which didn’t require full extension of the arm. Unfortunately, driving with little flick rollers is not a skill I often work on (meaning I suck at it). My score and attitude reflected the fact.
