Motocross

Mitch Evans Talks Recovery and Isolation As He Waits For Racing To Return

Posted:

Tuesday, April 14th, 2020

7:47 PM

On March 31st, Team HRC‰Ûªs Mitch Evans had surgery on his right-shoulder back in Brisbane, Australia where the Honda rider is now recuperating.

The initial prognosis from the doctors was good and the belief was that he would make a full and quick recovery. We caught up with youngster, who placed third in his first ever MXGP race, just to see how things were progressing on his end‰Û_

You had the surgery last week, what‰Ûªs the situation right now with the shoulder and how are you coping with it all?

I‰Ûªve basically now just got to let the shoulder recover and let the cartilage glue back to the bone. I have these little exercises that the physio has given me, after seeing him in the studio yesterday for my one week check-up. He was really happy with my range of motion and I have double the range that anyone normally would one week after surgery so that‰Ûªs a really positive sign. He gave me these exercises to do so I‰Ûªve been following that advice.

I‰Ûªm not in any pain so honestly, it doesn‰Ûªt even feel like I‰Ûªve had surgery at all. I‰Ûªve also been keeping in contact with Team HRC‰Ûªs physio Filippo and he‰Ûªs really happy with the progress too so it‰Ûªs all looking positive.

I‰Ûªm keeping it rested it, but doing these four different exercises four times a day and that‰Ûªs the only time that I‰Ûªm move it. They are pretty basic range of motion exercises and then nothing else.

What about the rest of your body, are you able to train and keep fit still?

I‰Ûªm still able to cycle, but I‰Ûªm not able to go running or anything like that. I‰Ûªm allowed to do cycling and weights on any other part of my body just as long as am I‰Ûªm not using my shoulder, so I started indoor cycling two days ago now and just slowly build back into it as I haven‰Ûªt really done much since I dislocated shoulder.

I just want to keep my base fitness and then once my shoulder starts feeling a lot better, I want to add some higher intensity workouts to try and replicate the bike time that I‰Ûªm missing. At the moment its low intensity stuff, just to get the body moving again.

In terms of the schedule, are you working on the shoulder schedule or are you looking at the MXGP schedule and trying to recover for that?

For me, I‰Ûªm just focusing on my shoulder and just by the timeline that my doctors and physio have laid out for me. I‰Ûªm not really worrying about the MXGP calendar right now, as honestly, I don‰Ûªt know when the next race is likely to be so it makes sense just to control what I can control. I hope though that by the time we do get back to racing, I‰Ûªll have spent time back on the bike already.

Is there a plan to come back from Australia or is it still up in the air?

I don‰Ûªt think anyone really has an idea at the minute, so we‰Ûªre just playing it day by day and seeing what the governments are saying. It‰Ûªs going to come down to when we‰Ûªre allowed out of the country, or even when I‰Ûªm allowed back into other countries without any quarantine periods.

You‰Ûªre at home most of the time now, have you found anything else to pass the time?

We‰Ûªve been doing jigsaw puzzles recently at home, 1000-piece puzzles and they take a good amount of time. We‰Ûªre onto our second one now so just trying to keep off the boredom that way. It‰Ûªs like being a little kid again, playing board games at home and sitting around and not doing too much. It‰Ûªs a difficult situation but I‰Ûªm also looking at doing some studying at home, so we‰Ûªll see how that goes.

I‰Ûªm thinking of doing something like science and nutrition, something along those lines, which could help me with my career at the moment and also gets me ahead for after my racing career.

Any last words for your fans out there?

I think it is just important for everyone to follow their government‰Ûªs guidelines during this difficult period. Obviously it‰Ûªs easy for me to say this right now, but the FIM message of #RidersAtHome is an important one to follow because this time will come to an end, and then once it‰Ûªs over, we can ride again without any problems.

It‰Ûªs important that people stay safe and just reduce unnecessary risk and personally, it‰Ûªll make the return to racing even sweeter when we get to do it.