Damage report: "To hospital with blue lights" - slopestyle pioneer Timo Pritzel in a body check

I'm not even nine years old and I'm already being rushed to hospital with blue lights. Blood in my ears - fractured skull base! I tried to do a wheelie over the kerb, looped out, fell backwards, straight onto the kerb. This head injury is one of the hardest blows I've had to take in my life. In my 41 years on studded tyres, I've also had many concussions - it's a tricky subject, because every blow to the head does something to you. Hence my appeal: don't take it lightly, make sure you heal up and deal with it.

All over it

In 2004 at the Whistler Joyride Slopestyle I wanted to skip the on-off box completely. Unfortunately, I fell backwards and had to jump off. The impact shredded all the ligaments in my right ankle and broke my fibula. Unfortunately, I had to go under the knife - because the fibula could only be fixed with a plate.

Wobbly knee

Is the crank loose? What's wobbling? No, it wasn't the bike at all, my knee was wobbly because I had torn my posterior cruciate ligament. It happened in the fourcross at the BIKE Festival in Riva. I had fought too hard with another rider. When racing, I'm so in attack mode that I didn't even notice the blow to my knee. With a lot of yoga and strength exercises, I managed to stabilise the knee again, because the posterior cruciate ligament is difficult to operate on properly. That's why the operation was too risky for me.

Mucki booth

The older I get, the more important it becomes to train with weights. That feels good. Nevertheless, I rarely go to the gym to lift iron. I prefer bodyweight exercises. Classics like pull-ups and press-ups. For me, the ideal mix is yoga, meditation and breathing exercises. It helps me to reduce stress and find my inner centre.

In 1996, I took part in a snow event and jumped a big hip jump. Unfortunately, the snow was too soft when I landed. I hit my upper body on the stem and ruptured my spleen. Conclusion: long break - annoying! But no operation - lucky me!

>> More bodychecks: Simon Gegenheimer

Lifestyle

I like to cook and try to eat healthily: lots of fresh produce, little sugar and no white flour. I had to learn this early on and under duress, because a malaria vaccination threw me so out of balance at the age of 25 that I developed severe allergies.

Kidney ruptured, back problems

At the Backyard Jam 1995, a big BMX contest in England, I backflipped over a river. Unfortunately too short. On impact, I rammed the handlebars into my stomach. 5000 cheering spectators and a lot of adrenalin masked the pain. Only when I started to feel dizzy did I suspect the worst. In the meantime, a litre of blood had already flowed out of my ruptured kidney. I didn't need an operation, it healed by itself.

My back tormented me for years. It was only bearable with painkillers. Even worse: the mental aspect. The constant pain put a damper on my zest for life. When the conventional doctors said: "We can't help you", I had no other choice: I had to take my fate into my own hands. I travelled to Asia, learned yoga, tai chi, found out a lot about naturopathy - out of an emergency situation, I learned to look after myself and I healed myself; the pain disappeared! So grateful! My message: The body is wonderful, but you have to do your homework - but then almost nothing is impossible.