How often do you fall over??

A snowHead

I dont mean in general life like walking down the street or when your pissed haha

This year due to a mountain bike accident I now have a fairly large metal pin holding the top of my femur on so I'm looking at ways to reduce risk but how much risk is there really on a bog standard 1 week ski holiday spent in a major resort?

Last year I spent a week in Austria in a full weeks worth of skiing I had 1 memorable fall and it was my fault (wasnt paying attention on a fast flat bit and caught an edge), apart from that maybe 2 stupid silly small falls like sliding backwards into a snow drift and then half falling half sitting down.

So the question is how often to you fall / crash in a standard 1 week ski trip??

not talking about park or pipe riding or off piste or even beginners as all of them increase fall chances

A snowHead

if your not falling your not trying wink

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

I'd talk to your surgeon and your insurance company. It's no us asking other people how often they fall over, that has no bearing on your situation. Apart from falling over you need to understand other risks, mainly the extra stress on your leg incurred by skiing - skiing fast on a hard packed piste and making a turn puts a lot more stress through your leg than regular walking, and the leveraging force of a ski on your foot exerts a large rotational force on your hip in the event of a fall, or even just a wobble where you manage to hold it and not fall. Could these forces be a risk to you even if you don't fall on to your injured leg?

I'm not saying you shouldn't ski by the way, far from it, I hope you will be fit enough, but it's something you need to work out with the experts who know your situation.

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enduroaid, Totally depends, if I am low speed cruising gentle pistes with less experienced skiers I will virtually never fall over, almost certainly less often than the occasional skid at home on something greasy.
When generally skiing though although I do not exactly push the limits I will certainly fall over on unprepared terrain off piste.

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enduroaid, I smashed my femur up in March 1993, had a 12" metal bar in there and 18 screws. they removed it all in Dec 93 I think and I was back skiing end of the season in 94.

Apparently the bone is just as strong/if not stronger, but I would definitely speak to your surgeon and seek their advice.

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I think if you stay within your limits you should hardly ever fall, but if falling would have serious consequences for you, you shouldn't go skiing. Personally if I am pushing myself I will have one or two big crashes a day, more if I am trying to learn a new trick.

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Depends on the conditions, easier to slip on an icy piste or get caught in some slush. I mostly fall over when I'm stood still and forget that I have skis on... Very Happy

I usually worry about other people skiing into me though to be honest as I can control what I am doing but not them. I guess it is all down to luck though, as long as you stick to the piste and don't do anything too steep that's all you can do to reduce risk.

After all it is free

I'm gonna kind of disagree a bit. Yeah when you're pushing your limits you're more likely to take a spill, but the times i'm 'taking it easy' is when I stop concentrating properly, which is normally when sweet lady snowboard chooses to hand me my back bottom to wear as a hat.

Delicate balance on keeping things interesting enough for you to focus on the job in hand while not going too far to the edge.

Richard_Sideways, agree with that. I've broken 2 bones skiing. The first on a green run, and the second on a blue run. Both when I was arguably going too fast and was too confident. In both cases I'd been in the park/offpiste beforehand and was just skiing home.

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I spoke to my surgeon at my last check up and I've spoken to my Physio about it all and both have cleared me to get back on ski's, both are confident that I will make a 99% recovery and the surgeon has suggested that the pin and screws will be permemant as taking them back out will cause more damage than before. The fracture was the neck of femur - right up in the hip joint so the pin runs at 45 degrees through the centre of the bone....check out dynamic hip screw if you want to see one

biggest problem for me at the moment is because i was off my feet for 10 weeks from June -Aug this year my balance is a bit funny and i have lost a lot of muscle mass in my left leg. But in saying that I'm back on the bike already

I have got some poc vpd impact shorts for this year just in case

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enduroaid, in that case I'd get in the gym and do all you can to build up muscle, your physio will be the person to talk to about what to do, but when I had hip surgery I did a lot of weights (I.e. a lot of exercise on weight machines, not necessarily big weights!) and some pilates-type stuff using one of those giant beach balls to build up core stability. I wasn't given the all-clear to ski until 12 months after surgery, so I had a lot longer to recover, but if you go late in the season you'll have had a long time for the bone to heal.

Good luck!

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Richard_Sideways, Me too. I've fallen over from stand still position because I've not been paying attention.

You know it makes sense.

Pam_w

the injury isnt such that I should not fall at all.......I'm allowed to fall thats just a fact of skiing and other sports, just that i should take the approprate safety precautions

Thread was really just trying to guage if folk fall and crash every day or if they mostly stay on there feet

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

enduroaid, I stay on my feet if I'm skiing cautiously.

A snowHead

Agreed lack of concentration is as much a risk as exceeding your limits. My only real injury (torn calf, grade 2 nearly grade 3) came from a spill at about walking speed on a pretty flat bit of green trackway.

A snowHead

enduroaid, When I had my big crash this season I realised I couldn't remember the last time I'd fallen over that season, it was at least 4 weeks before the crash. In the whole season I recall losing a ski exactly 3 times. I'm not an amazing skier btw, and my dins are set very light, I just don't seem to fall over all that much - maybe I should try harder!

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

enduroaid, good to hear about the 99% prognosis.

You should have enough time to get muscle mass and balance back - no need to go skiing at Christmas, and three months of serious training should get you up to speed.

On the original question, when I skied 4 months after my ACL op (with a brace and the doctor's consent, but still not recommended in most cases) I took things very carefully. Over one week I had one light fall on a blue run, lack of attention.

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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

Almost impossible IME not to have at least one carelessness slip on a snowboard (I had considerably more than that on my last time snowboarding due to my propensity to stuff the nose into sub surface objects in less than epic offpiste coverage and cartwheel over them)

On skis if you're competent and ski defensively it's quite hard to fall. Even trying to ski a mogul field at moderate speed you're more likely to wuss out with some sort of inelegant straddle hockey stop than actually crash. If you're trying to get Liggetty type speed and angles on a hard piste on punter skis or show breakable crust who's boss then your chances increase considerably of course.

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On a week trip, I normally fall once when stationary and probably once when I overcook it or have a brain fade and catch an edge.
However, you also have to consider factors outside your control. e.g. Getting collected by third party ijits. Happened to me twice, my daughter one and my wife once.
I wonder if people have been killed by slabs of snow falling from roofs? I have seen some big hunks come down and was very happy I wasn't under them

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After all it is free

I used to average about 5 to 10 falls a day for the first 6 or 7 years skiing. Some pretty big huge ball of snow with random skies ejecting out of it. It didn't improve because as I got better I started doing much more off piste, moguls, jump parks etc. The last few years it had dropped quite a bit and it's now very rare for me to fall on piste, so to remedy I have started attempting to learn to ski backwards in a proper manner. So back to the 5 - 10 a day while doing that rolling eyes

On piste when staking it while skiing fast I just tend to spin like a turtle on my back keeping the skis from digging in.

The only injuries I ever had were a MCL one to the knee on a really slow speed twisting fall when a ski tip hit a slushy mound and a sprained thumb from a pole when tumbling down a steep bumps field. Even hitting a rocky stream bed three times and twice smashing into a tree stump in deep powder last winter only resulted in a couple of minor grazes.

enduroaid, Hi, I picked up a book called 'Total Skiing' by Chris Fellows (2011) from Amazon with free post for around £10.
If and only if, you're really interested in injury prevention and being in optimum condition to go skiing, this is the book to study AND DO. Very, very few instructors give stretches / exercises to help in skiing. Sure, on a course there's often a few exercises to warm up and to stretch a couple of important muscle groups before and after skiing and indeed skier asymmetricals i.e L/R differences and range of leg rotations etc are talked about and demonstrated.
On www.skiclub.co.uk under Video section, select Ski fitness and once registered you can watch for free, 'Flexibility' and 'Strength' videos from Dr Craig McLean. So as a starter, watching and doing these exercises is a good start.
Now back to that book. It promotes a 'Performance Pyramid' the base upon every thing else is defendant upon is 'Functional Movement', then comes 'Targeting Ski Fitness', 'Mastering Essential Technique', 'Tactics and Drill'. The whole point of this book is to emphasize that if you want to get good and be in the best possible shape for improvement / injury prevention ( what you're interested in ) then you must master these 'Functional Movements' first
before anything else. Depending how you do, key objectives are set i.e the range of movement of particular points in your body for that exercise, awards scores of 0, 1,2 or 3.
Now, if say you have a score of only 1, there are a corresponding few exercises to improve that particular score to 2 and the exercise frequency of say 4 to 5 times / week. Again, when score of 2 is accomplished, further different exercises to get to score 3 are shown with usually lower frequency. when you reach score 3 - that's it! - but it must be re tested 4-6 weeks etc. So the key is, if you cant do this..., then do this easier exercise until you CAN do that, then, move on up.
Under 'Mastering Essential Technique', there's essential skills YOU must master, again with attainment scores. There's also a very handy cardiovascular section with training patterns / goals etc. THIS is the theme throughout the book.
This book is for anyone who wants to ski at their best all day, to be in the best possible shape to maximize any instruction taken and to be least likely to suffer injury through tiredness / or lack of ski fitness preparation.
It's a common problem in skiers to have bio mechanical issues which block skier development and if coupled to tiredness the spectra of injury is ever present.

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Generally if you are not pushing yourself and stay focused, you should be OK. There is no particular reason for you to fall. Yeah, people can crush into you, but if you are aware of your surroundings it largely eliminates this risk. The main thing is getting yourself to the appropriate fitness level. I got injured last January, nothing requiring surgery, but still spent 5 weeks on crutches and lost lot of muscle. 3 weeks of physio (twice a week) and 2 weeks of gym 4 times a week. I was back on skis at end of March and skied maybe 14 days total after coming back, but only piste and only half-days to take it slowly. Anyway, I wasn't anywhere near 99% fitness when I returned from injury, 85-88% I would guess, I could do all the exercises with physio, but one leg was noticeably thinner and I could feel it walking up the stairs etc. My friends were joking that I should be skiing on one leg and not bothered bring up the second ski. Without pushing myself, starting with blue runs and just cruising slowly and focusing on making round turns, I could eventually ski a black groomed run at a decent speed and in a good control. I didn't fall once. Balance is the key, so every time you have a chance work on it. Still plenty time till the season starts to get these muscles back.

You know it makes sense.

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

A snowHead

Actually, I have no further plans in that area. No more dropping anything if I can help it Happy

A snowHead

But really, a Jackson local who drop into Corbett's day after day staying upright will not faze the doctor.

In fact, my surgeon said I should x-c ski instead of alpine ski. Reality being, I don't have to fall on alpine skis if I don't challenge myself (though I prefer to push thing a little each day). But with x-c skiing, I'm not quite as sure footed on those skinny planks as I'm on the wide, stiff alpine skis. So though I fall less often but the falls are more unpredictable. So his recommnedation doesn't really fit my reality check! Sad

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

Almost never on piste. Perhaps 3 times per week off piste.

Sounds like you should be fine, though.

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Worth chucking in for the people who are proud of never falling - do you have the muscle memory to fall safely?

And related - I only really developed confidence in my reconstructed ACL when I had a decent fall. I'm quite glad this happened soon after getting back to skiing otherwise I'd have been tentative for much longer.

Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...

After all it is free

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How often do you fall over??

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