Modern athletes leave no stone unturned on their Road to recovery from jury and South Africa’s Robert hunter is no exception.

Hunter broke his hand in a skirmish with motorist a week ago and had to undergo surgery on the hand for a plate to be inserted.

His hand is still heavily swollen, but with a new Swiss healing lamp he has acquired he is very happy with his progress on the road to full recovery.

“The lamp regenerates cells,” explains Hunter. “ I simply place it under the light for a while every day and it speeds up recovery.”

Hunter isn’t training as much as he’d like at the moment, courtesy of his sensitive hand. “ I’m putting in three hours a day at moment just to keep going. I can train longer, but the risk is that my other muscles end up compensating because I don’t put pressure on my hand or grab the handlebars. That could lead to all sorts of other complications down the line,” he says.

Fortunately Hunter has time on his side with this season only kicking into gear with the start of the spring classics at the end of March with Milan San Remo.

“the Rocker” is very much known as tough customer, and there iv very little chance of injured hand influencing his season negatively. If anything, it might save him from falling into trap of overtraining at this early stage in this season.

Two years ago, when he became the first south African to ride in the Tour de France, he fractured a rib in a bad crash on the first stage of a premier European tour, but continued riding for another week in the event.

He eventually collapsed in the bath one night and then only was the bruised rib diagnosed.

He consequently spent a couple of weeks off and it only left him with six weeks to prepare before the start of the Tour de Suisse – directly after which the Tour de France awaited.

In six weeks he trained and got himself ready for the biggest event in his life up to that point and went on to rewrite the history books for south Africa.

What this leads one to believe, is that a broken bone in his hand Is likely to fade away into insignificance as the season progresses.