"JUST DO IT" is one kind of exercise adage, but "Things Could Be Worse" often seems just as fitting for all who aspire to keep moving despite a reliable stream of aches and pains. So, while devising a strategy for dealing with my current collection of ailments (tender left wrist, cranky right elbow, defective left hip), I am consoled by readers who wanted to add to our collection of strange injuries.

The earlier column revived a 75-year-old memory for Owen Swenson of Burien. "Back in White Rock, S.D., in the early '20s, I was in my mother's lap in the passenger seat in a Model T Ford open touring roadster. We were on a gravel road (what else was there?) when a dog ran alongside, barking at the front right side. It kicked up a fair-sized pebble, which knocked out one of my front teeth. Fortunately I was only about 4 years old, so Mother Nature replaced the tooth."

On New Year's Eve in 1983, eighth-grader Amy Brennan of West Seattle attempted to jump 7 feet from a yard to a driveway, but her foot caught between rocks and she fell face-first onto blacktop. Her two front teeth broke off from her braces on down, and one was splintered to the root. "Still to this day I have a lump right below my left ankle, a scar on the inside of my lip and have to have my capped teeth replaced every blue moon by a doctor who specializes in reconstructive dentistry." As she said, her adventure gives true meaning to the song, "All I Want for Christmas ..."

Doug Keith once tried a new route on his bicycle commute from Pioneer Square to Ballard. On a shortcut through a dirt parking lot, he encountered a particularly large puddle. "I pedaled faster to get to the other side as quickly as possible, and the next thing I remember I was seeing stars." The puddle apparently was much deeper on the far end, stopping the front wheel and sending him over the handlebars. "Blood was streaming from a gash on my nose, a few pebbles had been ground into my forehead and I felt a slight breeze blowing through a new gap in my teeth, not to mention being soaking wet." Despite thousands in dental bills, he found an amalgam lining several weeks later: "I won a prize for best costume at a Halloween party. I went as a bloody accident victim, missing tooth and all!"

Fitness news you can use Sports that hurt One-fourth of all emergency-room injuries to people age 5 to 24 in 1997 and 1998 were caused by sports, according to a study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Those injuries, numbering 2.6 million, cost about $500 million. The most common injuries were from basketball (447,000 emergency-room visits) and cycling (421,000); football had 271,000 and baseball/softball 245,000. But the study, the government's first comprehensive look at sports injuries, didn't indicate which sports are most dangerous, since it didn't have numbers of total participants. A date that works out "Matchmaking for those who take health and fitness to heart" is the slogan at www.fitnessdate.com. For $19.95, users get a month to advertise themselves and look for mates who also are interested in physical activity. The fitness kind, that is. Bottoms up It may be wishful thinking, but we may eventually find ourselves exercising in hot weather this summer. And even when it's not that hot, we should know how to control fluid intake to keep workouts safe and productive. For a free brochure from the American College of Sports Medicine, "Stay Cool to Perform Best," send a self-addressed, stamped business-size envelope to: ACSM, c/o Stay Cool, PI Dept., P.O. Box 1440, Indianapolis, IN 46206-1440. Though co-sponsored by Gatorade, it's not overly promotional toward such sweet - and in many cases unnecessary - "sport drinks."

When he worked in Miami, Bob Scharbert of Kent and a new business associate bantered for weeks about their tennis games before making a bet and setting up a match. "Finally the big day arrived. We headed for his country-club courts, all the while playing major head games with each other, trying to get the edge. We tossed racquets to see who would serve first; he won. He stepped up to the baseline and proceeded to deliver a smashing serve. His follow-through was so pronounced that his racquet head went all the way to the ground. He then somehow managed to step on it, falling and breaking both his right arm and right ankle. That was it for the big match. The following month I was transferred to Seattle, so there never was a rematch."

Two readers, perhaps emboldened by David Laws' story of how he nearly wore away his backside sliding down Mount Defiance in a snowstorm, related other tales from the bottom.

Wes in Lynnwood, not quite emboldened enough to reveal his last name, told of how, in 1969 as an Army cook in Fort Carson, Colo., he fell backward while opening the mess-hall door and landed on a four-pronged iron rack, impaling his gluteus maximus. "I was stuck," Wes said, "and it felt like a sledgehammer hit me." His cook's whites didn't fare so well, either. He needed surgery to clean out the wound and spent a couple of weeks in the hospital recovering.

Alison Cooper Godown of Bothell had no qualms about giving her full name. Then again, she wasn't talking about her own rear. "In high school (Calabasas, Calif.), our shop teacher, a Mr. Sharony Berger, somehow 'lost' his behind as well. Stories ran rampant: blew it off in a freak shop accident, lost it in 'Nam, whatever. Never did get the real scoop. But (no pun intended) we did have a recurring special in the lunchroom ... You'd ask for a Sharony Berger when you wanted the patty minus the bun!"

Molly Martin is assistant editor of Pacific Northwest magazine. She can be reached at 206-464-8243, by e-mailing mmartin@seattletimes.com or writing P.O. Box 70, Seattle, WA 98111. Boo Davis is a Seattle Times news artist.