Safe Skiing and Snowboarding
Snowboarding can be extremely fun, but without proper measures taken to ensure a good time, you can have a lousy day. Number one cause of lousy days is injuries, many of which can be avoided with an appropriate approach to prevention. If you are a beginner, another way to have a bad day at the slopes is to not take lessons. Valuable information can be obtained in these classes that will allow you to be ahead of the game.
Skiing injuries occur at about 2 times per 1000 ski days, snowboarding injuries can happen up to 5 times every 1000 snowboarding days. Both ratios are very low, but nevertheless can be minimized even more with proper precautions.
Showboarding
Wrist Injuries
By far the most common injury sustained by snowboarders, especially beginners, is at the wrist. Wrist injuries accounted for nearly 1/4 of all injuries sustained in 1996. This is even a greater risk for beginners who will spend much of their time on their behind and try to break their fall by falling on an outstretched hand (called a FOOSH injury by medical personnel) and depending on how hard the fall is, can also hurt the elbow or even transmit the force of the fall up to the shoulder. Wrist injuries are typically sprains or fractures. If not properly taken care of, these fractures can lead to an early onset of arthritis. A recommendation is to not fall on an outstretched hand, but to teach yourself to roll out of the fall by using your entire body. Another good prevention method is to wear wrist guards. Some wrist guards are built into the gloves, but those made for inline skating will also be very effective. Elbow pads are also very useful to absorb blows and also can be bought at an inline skating store.
Ankle Injuries
One study showed that of all the snowboard injuries tallied, 16% were at the ankle, but ankle injuries are typically encountered by those who are more experienced. For example, when a snowboarder "lands a jump" there are tremendous stresses and forces imparted on the ankle joint that can result in a sprain or even a fracture (called a snowboarder's ankle). This type of fracture may not show up on an x-ray. If an ankle injury is suspected and the person cannot bear weight on it after a week, a CT scan may be needed and medical attention must be sought.
The type of boots tends to effect the type of ankle injury that may be suffered. Hard shell boots tend to protect the ankle joint, but also tend to cause a greater chance of a "boot-top" fracture (typically after a high velocity fall) which is a fracture of the two lower leg bones (tibia and fibula) right at the top of the boot. Soft shell boots are favored by beginners for the greater freedom of movement in the ankle, but the cost of this freedom is a two fold increase in ankle injuries.
Knee Injuries
Although the ankle can be protected with a harder shell and a tighter binding to the board, the knee now needs to control those forces. Fortunately due to the design of the snowboard, the knees do not have a need to control excessive rotatory forces because both legs are on the same board. In skiing, this is not the case. When knee injuries occur is when a person is in the lift line. In order to push through the line to get to the lift, one foot is strapped, typically the front foot, to the board and the other foot pushes. The position of the leg on the board is rotated in and if a fall occurs at that time, the knee ligaments can be injured. Also while snowboarding both knees should be relatively bent at all times to help absorb shock. If you are not sure of how to get on and off a ski lift, have one of the people operating the lift to slow things down and show you.
Skiing Injuries
Knee
When people begin to get out of control on skis the joint that gets injured the most is the knee. Because the foot and ankle are relatively fixed in a hard boot that is securely attached to a ski, the next joint to feel the impact of the ski whirling around as you fall is the knee. These injuries can be ligament, meniscus or bone (dislocations).
Twenty-five percent of all skiing injuries occur at the knee and it is estimated that it happens about 1-2 times in 1000 ski days for any one particular person. Medial collateral ligament(MCL) injuries occur more commonly in beginners and intermediate skiers. Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL) injuries often occur in more advanced skiers.
Some tips to help prevent knee injuries are as follows:
- Keep knees flexed. Knees extended cause greater forces to be translated through the knee during a fall.
- If you fall, don't struggle to stay up. You may end up putting undue stress at the knee with uncoordinated efforts to stay up.
Wrist/Hand Injuries
"Skiers thumb" is an injury that occurs when a fall is sustained with the ski pole still in hand. In the past this injury has accounted for up to 12% of all skiing injuries . The force gets applied to the inside of the thumb as you fall which may rupture a ligament. This rupture results in extreme difficulty in picking up or gripping objects. If this injury is suspected, a stress x-ray of the thumb should be taken. In summary don't fall on the pole.
Head Injuries
In 1999 there were about 6.5 per 100,000 visits to the hospital for head injuries from snowboarding (6.3% of those being serious) and 3.8/100,000 from skiing (1.3% serious). Wearing a helmet is crucial to the well being of the snowboarder/skier, especially the beginner. The beginner may spend an inordinate amount of time on their back side from falling and also may hit their head on the ground. The novice may also catch the downhill edge of the snowboard and fall forward which is a worse fall than backwards. Helmets, while not a guarantee against a head injury from high velocity impacts (such as 40 Km/h), are very useful for minor falls and glancing blows. Look for the ASTM logo on the helmet which means it has met required standards.
Conditioning/Stretches
A few excellent off season and preseason conditioning activities to help prevent injury that are specific to snowboarding and skiing are in-line skating, biking, stair climbing and uphill running. Warming up then stretching is a good adjunct to conditioning to avoid injury. The warm-up should always be at a very comfortable, low level intensity, but specific to skiing or snowboarding for 10 to 15 minutes. This is where the beginner slopes are helpful or just use one of the preseason conditioning activities. The stretches should be a bit uncomfortable, but never painful. Three stretches that the author recommends are as follows:
Trunk Rotation
Stand with feet approximately shoulder width apart, turn and look as far as you can over your right shoulder, hold for 30 seconds and repeat to opposite side.
Hip Flexor/Quad Stretch
Standing next to wall for balance, bend right knee and hold right foot as you grab it behind you with your left hand. Extend right hip. Hold for 30 seconds.
Hip Abductors
Stand starting with feet shoulder width apart, slowly work your feet farther and farther apart keeping your knees straight until you feel a stretch on the inside of both legs. Hold for 30 seconds.
Perils of Tree-wells
Tree wells are deep snow depressions around a tree, typically on the down hill side of the tree and under low lying branches or sheltered areas. These areas allow enough snow below to accumulate and look OK to ski over, but in reality become very little pockets of air which are trapped within the snow which becomes loose. In short, stay away from the trees, especially off the marked path, during and after major snowstorms and powder conditions.
It is extremely difficult to survive deep snow immersion and is compounded by the fact that searchers have a problem finding snowboarders because they end up head first in the tree well and the skis or boards are at or below the level of the snow.
If however you do go down, hug a tree, grab branches, or anything you can to stay above the snow level but at the same time resist the temptation to excessively struggle. Excessive struggling will cause more snow to fall into the well, especially if you struggle with your skis or snowboard.
To be more successful at surviving, make a breathing area around your face, and carefully rock back and forth against the snow compacting it which will hollow out a space. Over time this space will increase with your body weight and heat and harden the snow which may allow you to get out. Survival chances increase if you keep your air space and stay calm until somebody arrives.
Last bit of Advice
- Try to avoid "one last run". That is when injuries typically occur.
- Pay attention to where you are skiing, look for ice patches, rocks, trees, people, etc.
- Reflexes are slowed by alcohol consumption and make an injury more likely.
- Take lessons.