Written by Greg Bell for Wanganui Chronical 

Every February, when the evening is cooling and summer is waning, a call goes out across lower St Johns Hill beckoning combatants in teams of three to grapple for that ancient trophy, that Auld Mug, known to a select few as the MIB Chalice, or the coveted prize of the Mates in Bowls.

A strange transformation begins to occur in the minds of humanoids over the age of youthful. It is this bizarre fact that the game of lawn bowls starts to look very appealing, when previously youthful people would scoff to even consider it. Wisdom favours the conservative as bowls is one of the lowest injury claim sports around and for the risk averse, how could you turn up your nose at it?

Since we last looked at bowls, the claims per year have risen slightly to 1322, according to ACC. This is up by 50 claims. The Sport and Active Recreation survey of 2013-14 found 4.2 per cent of their sample played bowls, so we can extrapolate that it would give us 168,000 players. This gives us an injury population of 0.7 per cent. Jogging and running, with its around 800,000 participants, had 16,217 new claims giving 2 per cent injuries, and the traditional injury minefield, Martial Arts, has according to the same survey, 6 per cent injuries. Most astonishingly, Rugby Union boasts 150,000 or so participants, and last year registered 39 per cent injuries to that population. So bowls is as safe as houses.

I am once more immersing myself in this world to bring you fresh insight into a foreign environment. Like the Mars Lunar Rovers beaming back critical data for mankind, so too have I dispatched myself to an alien kingdom, that you might better understand your future.

Firstly, as you step down into the rink, an artificial habitat unfurls green and verdant, flat, smooth and yet a little rough to the touch.

Since force equals mass times acceleration, and the size 5 bowl is under 1600 grams, this can impart a significant nudge to your ankle, toe or fingers. At 20km/h over 27 metres the bowl is decelerating, but if you put your foot in the way, you will notice a painful stimulus. As I played away with my teammates, we were oblivious to the pitched battle going on next to us, until someone attempted the drive, and several bowls ricocheted into our vicinity. Unlike golf where the cry “fore” is a warning to dive for cover, in bowls you probably only have a second or so to remove fleshy ankles from the ‘exploding head’. To my mind, this is probably the first injury of bowls – playing next to young cavaliers who fire powerful wresting shots akin to moose sparring in the wild.

Second injury, which I nearly succumbed to, is the Interdigital Haematoma Indicus or index finger crushed by a bowl kicked back to the mat after finishing an end. An end is technical speak resembling the game in tennis, or the set in ping pong. Both teams tend to kick the bowls back to start another end, and most likely there is a system of etiquette here that we haven’t learned. However, don’t put your hand between two bowls, or assume you can let one roll up into your cupped palm, as it will squash your finger.

Bowling delivery dictates that a low to the ground hand will eliminate bounce and allow the bowl to continue in a horizontally efficient trajectory. This might be a catalyst for my third injury: knee meniscal shear, or the cartilage getting pinched. Now for the six week part timers of Mates in Bowls, this may not even occur, but if you are, like me, carrying a horizontal tear in your medial meniscus, you might want to consider not driving the knee too far in front of the ankle.

Falls are a possibility wherever there is gravity. Stepping down into the rink, getting the stance too narrow or walking backwards admiring your kitty nudging shot are all risks to consider. Here balance training is a wise future proof exercise that physios are expert at. In the documentary Big Fat Fix, cardiologist Aseem Malhotra revolutionises his health, and one of the strategies for better health was resistance training on labile surfaces such as squatting on a fallen tree branch – the wobbly branch can be substituted for a pilates mat, cushions or floating log a la Canadian national sports.

Finally lifting an ancient leather suitcase replete with under 10kg of boules as appears to be the standard transport method requires grace, posture, symmetry and care. For those who are peering through the crack of the door to the closet of secret bowls ambition I say emerge, come forth and have a go. In the Active NZ survey, 89 per cent of people attested that fun was one of the major motivators to get involved in sporting activity, and with the prevalence of stress in the workplace and our lives we have more fears and stressors. So before we have to adjust and consider what nuclear winter sport we will be playing, get out on the rink and give bowls a go. It’s not just for the silver foxes. Its for brains, joints, hearts and minds.