Covering your back - what's the point of back protectors?

A snowHead

Well, there's probably only two snowheads bothering to read anything at this time of year, since everyone will be off cycling, doing the lawn or in B&Q...

Never mind, here we go...

This week's thought: when you pile into something, a back protector is going to do little for you. A lot of spinal injuries are to the neck. Hyperflexion is also a cause of serious injury (I have personal experience of this one), and a back protector will do nothing to prevent neck injury (a solid protector that is too big will possibly be the cause of injury when it rides up and creates a nice shelf for your neck to articulate over) nor will it be strong enough to stop hyperflexion in the neck or spine. So what the hell is the point of a back protector? I think that many studies have focussed on the properties of the material (though penetration and impact testing) without going into the mechanics of accidents. Different studies have produced slightly different results as to whether the majority of spinal injuries are cervical (neck) or lumber (lower back). It's difficult to conclude whether skiing or snowboarding is more dangerous - most studies suggest a much higher rate of injury to snowboarders, but this is an interesting study...

See
http://bjsm.bmj.com/content/42/1/55.abstract

The conclusions of many studies are interesting - they DO conclude that back protectors are a worthwhile piece of personal kit, and have established that increasingly they are being worn.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877705810003346

So...my thinking is this. VPD polymer backprotectors do work in dissipating energy. They do not work against hyperflexion, they do not protect in frontal impacts. They WILL work if something piles into you from behind. They will work if you are tumbling and your back hits something. This then gets interesting. Scenarios when you might be protected: when hit from behind by an idiot - this has happened to both me and my kids. They will work if you tumble on the steeps, but only preventing penetration or impact injuries to the spine.

And....my approach...I bought a another new back protector this week - nice POC VPD vest to wear when I am not using my protector-in-a-backpack by Ortovox. My kids have worn POC VPD protectors since they were 3 years' old. In one incident for my son, his back protector appears to have prevented injury, when an older skier piled into him from behind. He was 6 at the time. Horrible accident, and he walked away from it. And for me, same thing, idiot piled straight into the back of me from above, nasty shoulder injury to me, but nothing to my spine.

From the first study cited above:

Conclusions: With advances in technology and slope maintenance, skiers and snowboarders progress to higher skill levels and faster speeds more rapidly than ever before. Great efforts have been focused on reducing extremity injuries in snow sports, but until recently very little attention has been given to spinal injury prevention on the slopes. Suggestions for injury prevention include the use of spine protectors, participation on appropriate runs for ability level, proper fit and adjustment of equipment, and taking lessons with the goal of increasing ability and learning hill etiquette.

As usual in so many things in skiing - a focus on aspiration, behaviour and skill seems to be crucial....

And as a footnote: look at what appears to be happening with abstinence from alcohol (or not)...

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25798724

And that damn irritating tsss, tests, tsst, noise which comes from the youth with headphones on in the lift.....

A snowHead

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

@Hurtle, ...I am beginning to think that this is the principal reason for wearing one, other than for those who ski steep and deep and risk a tumbling fall or whack with ice - what were the details of your brother-in-law's accident and was he wearing a back protector? And hit and run? Where was this?

You need to Login to know who's really who.

One of my ski bros this season, when talking about protective gear, made a point that for <£200 you can have a helmet and back protector. Hopefully you won't need either, but for such a little cost in the grand scheme of things, why not take every precaution you can?

Personally, I only started having a back protector when I got my ABS, even when I used to ski park a lot. However, if I did go back to park stuff I would for sure buy a back protector as I did have a potentially fatal near miss the last time I skied on a fat pipe rail..

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

I doubt that rational or even polite debate is possible with this type of thing. I'm not sure what you're looking for.

From your first reference, it appears that these things don't do what most people expect them to do:
"...there appears to be a mismatch between customer expectations, injury occurrence and the actual preventive potential of currently available protectors."

Then from the abstract of your last reference the correlation with safety appears to be reversed:
"Slope-tourers with an injury were wearing more often back protectors, and were falling more often during downhill skiing,
and were abstaining less often from alcohol and were listening more often to music during downhill skiing compared to slope-tourers without an injury."

You don't see much use of park-armour in the back country, in my experience. The things those devices are designed to prevent aren't too common where I ride.

"why not take every precaution you can?".
Ask the people who fail to wear full-face helmets, and those who stop on piste to wait for their mates.
If you think about how people deal with risk then I think you can answer your own question. The answer is not "because they're stupid"; the opposite is closer to the truth.

You'll need to Register first of course.

@valais2, three years ago, skiing back into Mottaret from the Meribel side at the end of the day, on his own. Judging by the number of bones broken - umpteen ribs (multiple fractures in some cases) and a couple of vertebrae - it was probably a boarder(difficult to see how a skier could cause quite that much damage) but that's a guess and there were no witnesses. Some other random skier found him lying in a heap and summoned help. He was not wearing a back protector.

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

That is disgusting, leaving him injured. People!!

After all it is free

@Norrin Radd, indeed

@Hurtle, ...thanks for the details.

Our two accidents not dissimilar - my son was hit (as I said aged 6, with the skier entering a junction at speed) and the guy crashed too but tried to leave the scene. He was stopped, and gave repeated bogus phone numbers. Ridiculous. And in my case, a guy piled into the back of me, sending me straight down onto boiler plate, and he then promptly skied off as fast as he could go, leaving me with my son, then aged 9, sitting on the piste at 3000m.

*Ski* the Net with snowHeads

@valais2,

I must confess that this concerns me a little:

snowHeads are a friendly bunch.

snow reports

@Hurtle, ....I would get it checked by someone / a good retailer who knows about sizing - a 'sit down' accident can be common, and can be associated with the head going backwards. This is a scenario when a solid protector which rides up can be an issue for cervical - neck - injuries. I also am small (5, 7) and have carefully chosen soft polymer backprotectors (poc - but forcefield also do them) and these are carefully sized even though they present less of a 'shelf' than solid ones.

@valais2, thanks. On balance, I think it's OK. If I'm careful how I do it up, it doesn't ride up. But I might take it back to Ski Bartlett (where I bought it) and ask their advice, next time I'm there.

You know it makes sense.

I wear motorcycle body armour where the back protector and other bits and bobs are held in place with a 'vest'. On piste collision the main reason, although I'd wear it for lift accesses off piste. I wear the armour these days over a helmet which is much more of an occasional choice.

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

I too wear a back protector for road motorbike riding. Thinking more of a slide then hitting a kerp type scenario Shocked

I'd wear it in jump parks, but off piste I have a rucksack with a duvet jacket in so that gives a fair bit of cushioning.

A snowHead

I find the balance quite tough to work out but am moving toward the protection side. On the one hand, who wants to be a safety nerd? On the other hand, soldiers used to go up against automatic weapons in shirts, and helmets that wouldn't stop anything more than a ricochet. Now they wear kevlar vests, and helmets that will stop direct fire. They're no less brave, it's just that kevlar didn't exist before and now it does. Same with skiing. Originally people skied in tweed with woollen gloves, but technology moves on.
The back is one consideration but a number of the recent deaths I've read about have involved injury to the chest - impact to the heart, heart stops, person dies sort of thing. (Pretty sure the latest was the death of a lady in Flaine at a junction I know very well.)
I don't think I'll be bothering but I'm quite a solid bloke and I am very situationally aware and I am prepared to take the risk for the trade-off of greater mobility etc. But I certainly am looking at my kids. My daughters are all 6ft+ and around the 65kg mark, so basically extremely flimsy, and they ski very quickly, quicker than I do these days, and it has occurred to me more than once that a fall or other impact at these sorts of speeds is not dissimilar in certain conditions to chucking yourself out of a moving car. If the protection exists to either save your life or, more likely, reduce busted ribs to a winding, and it doesn't make you ski recklessly to the endangerment of others, why not wear the kit?

A snowHead

On an off-piste lesson a few weeks ago, in the safety bit at the beginning the instructor mentioned that we should be wearing back protectors or a backpack. We we carrying avi gear so everyone had some kind of bag, and he was happy with that. I assumed it was to protect against falls onto rocks as the risks of being crashed into by another party were minimal.

I don't currently wear one, but find the discussion about whether they help or not interesting. I would be wearing one if I suddenly decided that stunts in the park were my thing (unlikely).

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

You need to Login to know who's really who.

@northernsoulboy, ...I like the reasoning.

In 2002 I was one of two people wearing a helmet in the jostling lift queue at Barzettes. A boeri black number... my partner used to whistle the Dambusters Theme all the time, and point at my head. But someone said - why do you wear that? I said, because I used to wear one when I went the same speed on a motorbike; one has saved my life when I was mountain-biking; and rocks and dropped gear have bounced of my Petzl Erin when I am climbing. And since I usually wear a fleece hat to keep warm, I may as well wear a helmet, with all the added protection. 'Fair point' said he. And of course now, there's scarcely a head in the station without a helmet on.

My backpack has a back protector in it, and when not wearing that, I find the POC VPD protectors neither restrict my movement nor bother me at all. So I wear one.

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

You'll need to Register first of course.

The funny thing with safety gear is that even if you are not entirely convinced of its effectiveness, once you've started to use it, you can never really stop using it because of the 'what if' factor. I started wearing a back protector about 3 years ago because I acquired it for free; I was reluctant, and it wasn't very comfortable initially, but I got used to it. This year I replaced it with one that fitted me properly, (also acquired for peanuts), and now I barely know I'm wearing it, so no excuse not to wear it at all.
I took a tumble this year, sliding about 100m down a steep icy black, and whilst the fall wouldn't have injured me, I'm sure I was less bruised because of wearing it, and I was quite glad I had it on.

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

You have basically two different sorts of back protectors for skiing. One (Dainese for example) does good job preventing hyperflexion. At least with Dainese, their skiing back protectors (except one or two soft variants) are basically their motor bike protectors but painted white (ski version) instead of black (moto version). Most of this protectors are missing some extra padding on top of back (close to shoulders) which makes skiing GS, SG or DH between the gates rather painful.
On the other side you have soft back protectors like Syltech, Poc etc. which are basically protection against hits, and are way too soft to have any use preventing hyperflexion.
But either way, I agree, there's no protection for neck. But as far as I'm concerned, it gives some extra protection reducing some risk, but still not making you 100% invulnerable.

After all it is free

The only way to achieve 100% invulnerability is to ski in bubble wraps.

Might buy one for next season. Seems a sensible thing to do.

*Ski* the Net with snowHeads

I ski with a backpack (Scott Air 30) all the time which gives excellent back protection. I'd only wear a back protector if I was in the park (too old for that) or running gates when I wouldn't be wearing a pack. Although I can wear my back protector with my backpack it's not that comfortable.

For all mountain/off-piste (when you should be wearing a backpack for avi gear etc) I think that impact shorts (hard not soft) & knee pads give a better 'bang for yer buck' than a back protector. I know a good few folks who've had bad thigh injuries due to hitting rocks & if I have a forward eject then I always seem to hit the ground knee first.

I use the Dainese Action Evo shorts & Black Diamond Telekneesis pads, both of which are excellent.

snowHeads are a friendly bunch.

Some airbag systems no doubt on the way:

http://youtube.com/v/mo9Vlt5tGwY

http://youtube.com/v/vtqQJ9hqVoM

snow reports

@AndAnotherThing.., That'll be the Dainese D-Air Ski vest, as seen in action in the FIS world cup this year, featuring 3 Gyroscopes, 3 accelerometers, GPS and a data logger to download your perfect run/epic bail details to your FB page/casualty consultant. The system is smart enough to tell the difference between an accident where it'll help and one where it won't, so doesn't deploy, say, if you lose an edge and just slide

You know it makes sense.

@Richard_Sideways, I did wonder if Dainese had developed a ski version given the similarities to the bike stuff. Next step is to ditch most of the electronics and slave it to your phone...

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

@AndAnotherThing.., I see your point, but if you drop your phone - FOOM! Your coat explodes!

A snowHead

@Richard_Sideways, Laughing

A snowHead

@Richard_Sideways, Much fun to be had....

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

I think the rationale of using a spine protector would be more to do with the severity of outcome if the spine receives a sharp impact, rather than likelihood of that happening. Knees, thighs etc. can usually recover well from sharp impacts, nerves running adjacent to the spine may not. I haven't started wearing one routinely yet but did buy a foam one to try while race training. Unfortunately I didn't check the size properly and ended up with one that's too long, so gave up with it after a few runs, and may try the same model or similar in the right size next season.

You need to Login to know who's really who.

So, what would could I use for mountain biking as well as skiing? So much of it seems to have commonality - speed, falls, impact, etc. Would the Dianese Action range be the right sort of thing to look at?

Getting/got old... don't bounce as well as I used to rolling eyes

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

@jd_evans, MX kit ?

You'll need to Register first of course.

@AndAnotherThing.., by MX I presume you mean moto-cross? Good shout, not even considered that, it seems a bit too serious or heavy to use for skiing but I'll have a good look. Have you got any hints?

I was looking at stuff like this - http://www.edgeandwax.co.uk/1241775/products/dainese_action_full_pro_2016_body_protection.aspx as, for want of a better description, cross-over kit.

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

After all it is free

Back protector threads the new helmet threads?

*Ski* the Net with snowHeads

Help!!

Covering your back - what's the point of back protectors?

snowHeads Forum Index >>> The Piste