Knee Problems While Snowboarding Or Skiing

FRIDAY, 26 JUNE 2009
Submitted By: Mariangela Silvestre

No one wants to think about knee pain, especially while skiing or snowboarding. So what if a knee injury happens to you in the future? You'll wonder how you could have prevented it from happening. Here are some knee injury prevention tips so that you won't have to look back in vain.

When you are snowboarding or skiing, you will most likely have twisting forces that can occur at your knee joints. As you know your feet are usually locked (more or less) into the ski or snowboard, but you still need to adapt to the snowy terrain as you go over bumps in the mountain side. This sets up a situation were you might hurt your knee due to a twisting or otherwise awkward movement. Although we hope this does not ever happen, we do suggest you read on to get some useful prevention tips.

Even if you are a great skier, chances are that you can fall at some point during a ski trip. Or, if you are not a person who "has ever fallen" you can use this information to help someone who does:

1.) Don't fully straighten your legs when you fall. Keep your knees flexed. This helps avoid hyperextension of your legs, which can contribute to a knee injury.

2.) Don't try to get up until you have stopped sliding. Many knee injuries happen as a result of trying to get up to quickly when your balance is not good, and this is when your real injury might happen.

3.) Don't land on your hands (if you can help it) Keep your arms up and forward. This is more of a general point of safety.

4.) Do not jump unless you know where and how to land. Sounds simple enough, right? It is best to land on both skis and keep your knees flexed.

If you have a pre-existing knee injury or knee pain the use of a well designed knee brace can help reduce your pain, and can also help prevent future knee injuries from occurring. The US ski team makes use of knee braces to achieve these results, because they know the value of stable healthy knee while skiing.

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