News - Ski or snow board?

Whether you ski or snow board, are a beginner or advanced, anyone can suffer an injury during or after a skiing trip. Most commonly knees and wrists are the most affected as the knees can twist easily damaging the soft tissues of ligaments or cartilage in the knee joint.

Wrists are elbows are easily broken if falling on an outstretched hand. Whilst injuries are difficult to prevent some things can be done to try to make you as safe as possible whilst skiing or boarding. 

Firstly, don’t force your level of experience. If you are a beginner look at having some lessons with an instructor and try to stick to slopes that are within your ability.

All too often it is easy to attempt something, loose your concentration or be scared by someone coming up fast behind you and before you know it your speeding down the slope and not able to control your board or skis. Secondly, never ski if you are tired.

After lunch can be the most dangerous time when muscles and joints have cooled down from the morning and your tummy is full with a delicious lunch. At this stage your muscles can take longer to warm up due to reduced circulation which means straining or spraining a ligament or muscle can easily happen, even if you are on a slope that seems within your capability.

So take it slowly to properly warm up those muscles and give your tummy time to digest lunch and send the circulation back down to the muscles that need it. If you suffer an injury but aren’t sure what to do. The general advice is always rest, ice, compression and elevation of the limb in the initial stages. Most ski resorts however have a number of sports injuries clinics where advice and treatment can be given at the time. However, once you return from your holiday you should always be re-assessed especially if the region is still swollen or severely bruised as more advice and treatment may be needed.

Never just put up with it thinking that it will go away, the majority of the time this causes more problems in the long run. Also as useful as anti-inflammatories and pain killers are, if after 7 days of taking a full dosage you see no improvement a proper examination from a skilled practitioner should be done to evaluate the extent of damage and possible routes of treatment or investigations that could be done.