While the globe completely over-reacts to the coronavirus outbreak and stockpiles hand santiser like it’s the end of the world, Leon Camier is somewhat thankful as it gives his crocked shoulder more time to recover before more WorldSBK action.

The second round at Qatar was due next weekend but has been postponed which gives the Barni Ducati rider at last another three weeks before the Jerez race which is scheduled for the end of the month.

Camier came back from injury at Phillip Island after very little seat time in winter testing but it proved too difficult and too early for the former British Superbike king.

“I tried to ride. I thought it was going to be very difficult, but I thought if there is a track that I’ll be able to get round it will be Phillip Island. But probably underestimated the hard changes of direction when I’ve got a gammy shoulder,” Camier told bikesportnews.com from a beach somewhere.

“Basically the shoulder is improving. It is improving, but it’s not like a broken bone where it’s like you get a training and then it comes back real quick. A lot of the muscles after the operation are sort of turned off.

“The shoulder’s such a complex joint anyway. To keep the humerus, the arm, located centrally in the socket is pretty hard to do, because you’ve got to train the right muscles over it.

Basically everything on a motorbike is pulling it the wrong way. Everything you do on a motorbike is pulling your shoulders in to your chest, and everything I’ve got to do training-wise is the opposite.

“So I’m doing a lot of stuff with bands and some small weights. Just trying to strengthen all the muscles in the back of the shoulder to keep my shoulders back down, basically. There’s still a bit of dysfunction there with muscles.

“You compensate very easily because there’s so many muscles around it. So one muscle you just sort of train, so you end up compensating. Then the muscles that I was using weren’t right, so after a few laps or after a session I’d come in and my muscles were just locked solid, certain muscles.

“The ones that should be using, I’m not really using that well because I’ve got to train them more and it needs more time to be functioning right. So you have to balancing-act the whole thing, basically.

Marc Marquez is suffering with a similar injury and something not too far away also ended the career of WorldSBK champion and MotoGP star Ben Spies.

“Ben’s injury was like the first one I had last year. He broke all the ligaments in the AC joint and ended up having a ligament from a dead person.

“I had false ligaments put in, which goes under a bone called the coracoid process. Then they drill two holes in your collarbone, put the false ligament through them and then put screws in that. Then when I crashed this time, it broke the bone that the false ligament was connected to, but luckily it didn’t displace.

“So the ligament was still attached, which was really good. I was really lucky with that. It could have fallen off, which would have been an absolute world of shit, but it didn’t. So I was pretty lucky.

It’s the same operation a Marquez had, basically. I don’t know the full details of what he had, but I know from when it dislocates, like a subluxation, they have to cut the bicep tendon off and then reattach it to a point, which normally they would screw to the bone that I had broken.

“They couldn’t attach it to that, so they had to attach it to a different place in my arm. It did loads of damage. It tore the supraspinatus tendon as well, which is stitched back together. Then it dented the top of the humerus.

“There was loads of inflammation throughout and degenerative tissue, which they cleaned all out and stuff. Either way, it’s going good. There’s another guy on our team last year had the same operation and he can barely move his arm.

“It’s better than most people in this situation. Not most, nearly all people. The doctor couldn’t believe how far it had come along this quickly, basically. It’s all going good. I’m on the right path. It just needs more time and more training, basically. Training and rest, training and rest. Physio training and rest.”