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Why so many ACL injuries?

 Poster: A snowHead
Poster: A snowHead
Just curious?

wider skis?
more folk going off piste?
coincedence?

something else?

cheers,

Greg
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too many people skiing in the back seat
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More older and more less fit people, doing a bit more than just cruising around I would guess.
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kitenski, everyone's got a theory. It's older, less fit, crap skiers, women at certain times in their cycle etc. etc. I now know loads of people who have done them - young, fit ski instructors who've been skiing their whole lives, teenagers, strong and skilled men, on piste, off piste, when skiing fast, when skiing slowly.
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kitenski, it caused quite a bit of discussion during the SoPi bash. I don't have a theory, but perhaps some sort of pre-ski exercise program that is easy to do, not boring etc etc, might help some of us who are reluctant gym visitors. I'm putting my bike in the back of my van starting next week. I work right next to a network of cycle paths.
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It's just the way sport is. In skiing knees and ligaments in knees are most exposed part. In some other sport, it's something else. I agree that sometimes it's about age, fitness level, skills level etc. But if you look at World cup for example, majority of injuries are knee ligaments. And I doubt you can say something about "older, less fit people" when you talk about those (yeah I agree, alpine skiers are not fittest guys on planet but still). It's just that knees suffer most.
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I'd say its because we have got really long levers strapped to our feet and ski bindings don't always release immediately when we need them too. But I am inclined to say that modern skis allow us to ski much faster than we ever used to (especially in variable unpisted stuff) and there has not been such a large improvement in ski binding technology to compensate? But to be honest accidents just happens sometimes. It sucks.
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Whilst fitness probably helps, as primoz, says people with excellent technique and thighs of steel do this injury. Whilst I may not have excellent technique, I have had a lot of lessons to ensure I don't sit in the back seat. I might not have thighs of steel but I have a manual labour job that sees me running around a 5 storey building, up and down stairs all day every day and when I'm not doing that I am skiing or hiking up and down the mountains for many hours at a time. My upper body strength is pretty crap (although has improved greatly since I did my ACL!) but leg strength is not. I wasn't at "that time" of my cycle, I'm not old, my legs were warmed up... really not sure what else I could do other than loosen my bindings so the ski releases more quickly... but loose bindings pose another risk.

Surely the higher incidence of ACL injury this season has been about the snow conditions? If there really is a reason over and beyond that which would enable people to prevent ACL injuries when skiing, I'd love to know.
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Elston, cross post. My physio said something about the positioning of modern kit putting the ligament in a taut position or something like that... but who knows... ultimately I agree that accidents just happen in a sport like this and the vast majority of the time you're fine and very occasionally you get unlucky.
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In my case I think I simply got unlucky. With hind sight there were a number of small contributing factors to the fall which was pretty trivial. In the end I guess in the end the numbers catch up with you. Better a slow speed knee than a high speed injury of a different sort.

I've wondered if the wider kit contributed but it's hard to argue that it would be more than a very small factor during the fall it's self.
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I think I agree with Elston. Also I'm not sure a specifically selected population like snowheads (& an an even more selected population like the SOPB) is eveidence of more ACL injuries.

Personally though I run a DIN which is too low by almost all traditional measures and have definitely taken sacrificial falls when I probably could have held it together to avoid something worse. Having said this I'll probably pop a ligament getting on the train now rolling eyes
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fatbob wrote:
I'm not sure a specifically selected population like snowheads (& an an even more selected population like the SOPB) is eveidence of more ACL injuries.


I agree but apparently there have been more ACL injuries this season according to my physio in France (who's not from round here as he freelances in various resorts during the ski season and so has friends in lots of different cabinets). Might be rubbish though.

Edit: thinking about it, it probably is a bit of waffle. Maybe he and one or two of his mates have noticed they're dealing with more knee injuries this season than other things but we do have lots of time to fill so do end up speculating and talking rubbish about all manner of stuff. It's been great for my French at least.
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Arno wrote:
too many people skiing in the back seat


I've not skied with anyone who has had an ACL go, but based on lots of comments on snowheads there appears to be more of this based on the fatter skis making life easier for folk!
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miranda wrote:
Elston, cross post. My physio said something about the positioning of modern kit putting the ligament in a taut position or something like that... .


That's what I was hinting at, do wider skis put different pressures on knees? any chance you can get some clarity from your physio???
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Arno, +1 for recreational skiers. also could be that people on fatter skis offpiste and in slush/ variables who mainly turn by twisting their feet are getting caught out.. we had three sprained ankles last week in afternoon slush (on their days off unaccompanied by coaches Very Happy )

amateur racers are getting em more ofter when entering the big time of FIS races with high bib numbers and rutted courses
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even for very good skiers, the problems seem to come if they get knocked into the backseat and then their skis twist underneath them. I always cringe if I see this happening while watching the races
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Arno, agreed i just made the distinction between those in courses and those freeskiing... perhaps rec skiers was the wrong term
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skimottaret, yeah - I guess the difference is that recreational skiers are often in the backseat and turn by twisting as a matter of course. this only happens to racer types when something has happened to knock them out of their usual good form

not sure whether fat skis make much difference. i was on skinnies when i busted my ACL. i can see that skis with a big sidecut could be more dangerous
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Arno, not to open a can of worms but fatter skis (imo) do allow those with lower skill level to venture into variable conditions. This is a two edge sword, good cause they can enjoy more of the mountain bad cause they can get hurt more easily..

but as Elston, said sh*t happens... I am laying in bed with a bad neck sore knee after taking a reasonable hit last week... at least my post count is going up snowHead
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Surely there have always been recreational skiers sitting in the back seat though... so maybe a change in kit + back seat mistake is the reason for a general increase?

NY times report:

Quote:
figures show a 50 percent drop in the overall injury rate in skiing in the last 20 years: from 5 injuries per 1,000 skier visits to 2.5 injuries per 1,000 skier visits. Broken legs and ankle injuries have each decreased about 90 percent, he said. But the incidence of injuries to the knee, specifically to the anterior cruciate ligament, has increased.

"Serious knee injuries, especially A.C.L. injuries, have gone up," said Shealy, who has worked on ski injury problems since 1969. "Twenty years ago, A.C.L.'s represented about 3 percent of all ski injuries; for the past seven seasons, they have represented 16 percent of all skiing injuries. Of the 125,000 injuries suffered annually by skiers at United States resorts today, more than 20,000 are serious knee sprains, most of which involve the anterior cruciate ligament. By comparison, skiers suffer fewer than 2,000 broken legs and fewer than 3,000 ankle injuries a year.


Site that wants to sell you sports braces:

Quote:
There are several reasons for the rise in ACL injuries during skiing . Diagnostic investigations such as MRI have meant that the ability to diagnose ACL injuries has improved over the years. Also the improvements in ski boots and bindings that have helped reduce ankle and shin injuries appear to have contributed to the increase in ACL injuries. The forces that had previously affected the ankle and shin are now dissipated to the knee joint, with the ACL commonly injured. Bindings are designed to reduce shin fractures, and their release mechanisms are not fast enough to protect the knee from a sudden twisting injury.
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miranda, see also phantom foot injuries for more information
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skimottaret wrote:
at least my post count is going up snowHead


Think mine has doubled since I injured myself Laughing
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skimottaret, not an unfair point
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Read the phantom foot stuff and it makes sense of course. But I'm sure we all know very good skiers (not racers) who've done the injury who rarely make a back seat mistake, so it's useful to make sure you don't get slack and focus on technique but other than that, what can you do but hope for the best? I'm certainly both fitter and a much better skier now than I was for the many, many years that I didn't injure myself rolling eyes Anyway, that's far too much time spent today thinking about ACL injuries - they stick around for long enough as it is, so not good to spend hours thinking about them! Laughing
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Quote:

rarely
is a bit like like horseshoes and hand grenades... close doesnt count
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skimottaret, yup, and unfortunately we can't all be perfect all of the time (and, yes, some of us don't even come close wink)
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O.P Heavy snow
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Cynic wrote:
O.P Heavy snow
Not necessarily, mine was on a very hard packed red run, but then again mine isn't a typical ACL injury, mine is a fracture of the tibia where the ACL connects. And as for being in the back seat when it happened, I don't think I was, although I was just 'cruising' home at the end of the day. One thing's for sure though - the ski stayed determinedly attached. Sad
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 You know it makes sense.
You know it makes sense.
Cynic, spot on - people going from easy off piste powder and not spotting the change in snow pack - happened to me last year - did a lovely steep N face in cold snow came out at the bottom on to a plateau that had been in the sun and snow went from sweet to sludge in 3ms and I had not adjusted my technique.

Now a year on and only 6 months post Op I've been very nervous of skiing soft snow etc as soon as I've come across it.

That said did not affect me when skiing superb powder!!

girosse.mp4 from Weathercam
http://vimeo.com/38917618

There is a binding on the market (Google it) that states that they have developed a release mechanism that saves ACLs !!!
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There are all sorts of factors that can come together and one of those factors has to be bad luck because the fact is that great skiers, good skiers, ok skiers and poor skiers all do it. And yet people in all of those categories - including the poor one - also go through an entire life of skiing without doing it too. Poor technique no doubt raises your chances - whether that's a permanent habit or a momentary lapse of concentration - and I certainly know I'm not a particularly good skier so I've no qualms about acknowledging that. But even the good and the great can mess up and/or get unlucky sometimes. What I have noticed though is lots of people saying "yes, it happens to poor skiers but with me it was just bad luck" Laughing I think I was a hugely lucky poor skier for a long time and am now a mildly unlucky ok skier wink


edited to switch out a word I didn't like.
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Playing football seems a bit of an issue as well as far as I can tell....

That said, after my little sit down it's hard not to think that binding technology seems to have stalled.
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I'm hobbling around after SOPiB 2012. I had my first taste of ski touring... three hours up the Col du Galibier, a ten minute lunch with a good view, and a twenty two minute ski back down. I was so tired when I got to the top that I couldn't ski properly on the way down, and on much stiffer skis than I'm used to. I got in the back seat on one turn, had a wobble and a heroic save which resulted in strained medial and lateral co-lateral ligaments. Thankfully, it's nowhere near as bad as an ACL injury, so I should be ok in a few weeks.

My chiropractor's theory is that knees are designed to have feet on the end of our legs and not to cope with the leverage from skis. Not that that stops him as he's a boarder, which he says is even worse for them in a fall.

He reckons staying hydrated is very important in preventing injury, so... bladder up.
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Duke,
Quote:
Not that that stops him as he's a boarder, which he says is even worse for them in a fall.


That's interesting. I'd assumed that boarding would incur a different set if problems.
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ref OP A well known instructor friend points to change of perception for crashes, I stood watching a French skier on skis totally unsuitable for heavy untracked snow and he came down like a god, just before the end of the pitch he looked at the group his ski kicked out and he had injured his knee. Aforementioned instructor reckons as we ski down the concentration is six feet in front, as soon as we look up and away the concentration is broken and the skier can fall, notice next time how many people fall near a group, or even into it. I'm talking experienced OP skiers as well as the inexperienced. (Fortunately, the unfortunate faller was a doctor and knew how to protect the tear down some hideous ice rutted tracks on the way home)
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AndAnotherThing.., I'm not sure if he specifically meant ACLs or was referring to other knee injuries.
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So if you lose concentration, get thrown from the correct position, or never learn what the correct position is you are - unsurprisingly - more likely to fall, in a sport where let's face it falling over is always a distinct possibility even for the best skiers (what with it involving having big planks strapped to your feet whilst travelling across a slippery, steep or uneven surface). Research shows that over the last couple of decades, as kit has changed, a fall is less likely to result in ankle and shin injuries than it was in the past and more likely to result in knee injuries than it was in the past. A lot of the time skiers of all ages and levels of experience manage not to do themselves any harm if they fall over. Sometimes they get unlucky.
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I also wonder whether enough time (if any) is invested in teaching people how to fall. Since I had knee reconstruction (originally resulting from rugby/mtn biking not skiing) I have a stronger sense of when it is more prudent to take the hip fall rather than hold it together and risk accelerating out of the back seat. This also extends to getting up from lower gradient pitches - I'd rather take skis off than strain knees at a bad angle with a big lever on them.
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fatbob wrote:
This also extends to getting up from lower gradient pitches - I'd rather take skis off than strain knees at a bad angle with a big lever on them.


me too
i feel a right old man for doing it though
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fatbob, Arno, +1
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On some of that research they did say they thought they'd managed to reduce ACL injuries amongst instructors and patrol by half by teaching them how to fall (well they actually presented it as fact that this was the reason for less ACL injuries amongst the group without talking about any other considerations). Some falls are just way too quick for you to have time to control it, but in the past I know I've done things like recovered to standing position whilst still moving in a slow speed fall etc. although in recent years I've been more inclined to do as fatbob says rather than trying to hold it together - not because anyone taught me to do that but just because it seemed the better thing to do. Do any of the instructors on here teach people how to fall? Were they taught how to fall themselves as part of their training? There's still only so much you can do, obviously, but an interesting question as the research suggested that experienced skiers like instructors and patrol still needed teaching.
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