The toll ski racing takes on your body

[robertc3]

The long-term benefits of being an athlete and being active in many sports is undeniable. When I was coaching high level youth fastpitch the other coaches and I talked regularly about creating athletes who would be lifelong athletes as the biggest thing we were doing for the girls. There is a difference with sports at the highest level where the tradeoff is greatness now for possibly spending the rest of your life dealing with the broken remains of the body that got your to that greatness. Not everyone's body breaks down, and Lindsey Vonn is certainly not representative of all of skiing or even all of women's alpine racing, but many former top level athletes live with the pain of old injuries.

 

[James]

The Vonn documentary (HBO, I think) included multiple references to doctors telling her that continuing to race was setting her up for medical issues for the remainder of her life, possibly even threatening her ability to walk if she had another bad crash.

If I recall, she kept going for years after the doctors started advising her that it wasn't a good idea. She's clearly wired differently to drive herself to the levels she did.

Pretty much sums it up from 4 yrs ago-

 

[Tony Storaro]

It is a huge price that these racers pay with their bodies. Not sure that it is worth it.

Depends which sport we are talking about. I’d happily take a case of tennis elbow if my name was Roger or Rafael or Novak, whereas I am kinda reluctant to die at 46 and been remembered as one hell of a bodybuilder.

 

[Paul Lutes]

While I agree that long term gain from competitive athletics is significant, assuming informed consent, I wouldn't ignore the short term benefits either. The camaraderie, the pride in accomplishment, the attention, maybe more than enough to counter the premature decline that may come with such endeavors. It's probably much more difficult to accept that for those around the athlete than the athlete themselves.

 

[martyg]

Halo Neuroscience is shorting the learning curve. The US team has four units, last that I heard. The units reduce the time to learn new movement patterns by 50%. This reduces the training load and exposure to injury to learn a new motor skill. Halo did not pay the pool fee so you they are not being promoted as part of the program. The units are used across several disciplines, from musicians to those in the JSOC pipeline.

I've often heard the Mikaela can sleep anywhere, and fall to sleep quickly. Sleep patterns definately play a huge role in recovery, and wonder how that has factored into her robustness.

 

[slidingmike]

Halo Neuroscience is shorting the learning curve. The US team has four units, last that I heard. The units reduce the time to learn new movement patterns by 50%. This reduces the training load and exposure to injury to learn a new motor skill. Halo did not pay the pool fee so you they are not being promoted as part of the program. The units are used across several disciplines, from musicians to those in the JSOC pipeline.

I've often heard the Mikaela can sleep anywhere, and fall to sleep quickly. Sleep patterns definately play a huge role in recovery, and wonder how that has factored into her robustness.

It appears that Halo has ceased operations and sold off their IP (now focused only on treating depression). If it was truly successful in skills development (sporting, music), I hope someone else picks it up and carries on.

 

[cantunamunch]

If it was truly successful in skills development (sporting, music), I hope someone else picks it up and carries on.

Oh, it's being chased much more actively than you'd think. It's a big AI push too. Anyway expect budget product from China, Korea and more upscale gear backed by cloud computing resources to do the AI EEG analysis from big electronics players like Philips. The visual stimulus possibility means the VR players are interested too.

 

[wolcoma]

I think what we all admired about Lindsey Vonn is her "toughness". She had the mental fortitude to battle through pain, ski on the edge, and still win World Cup races. Meanwhile her personality and big smile has been great for alpine ski racing!

 

[RoninSkier]

The very concept of competition is to find your limits & to push them. Then to compare your limits against your competitors and push your limits more to crush the other guy.

Compounding this is the financial incentive for the highest level athletes, it's their job, their career and their path to financial freedom or great wealth. Sometimes their only path.

To push limits is to take risks. Ski racing or any high level high stress sport requires sacrifice & risk taking to achieve greatness.

So its almost a guarantee that most ski racers end up with some issues as they age. A few are blessed with not only natural talent but physical robustness.

Sports medicine and good science based coaching helps a lot.

 

[cantunamunch]

The very concept of competition is to find your limits & to push them. Then to compare your limits against your competitors and push your limits more to crush the other guy.

Compounding this is the financial incentive for the highest level athletes, it's their job, their career and their path to financial freedom or great wealth. Sometimes their only path.

To push limits is to take risks. Ski racing or any high level high stress sport requires sacrifice & risk taking to achieve greatness.

Fine, fine. But we're beyond that point now. Old sumo wrestlers all have injuries. Old keirin racers don't. Pushing against some limits leads to injury whereas pushing against others (like racecraft) doesn't.

So its almost a guarantee that most ski racers end up with some issues as they age. A few are blessed with not only natural talent but physical robustness.

Sports medicine and good science based coaching helps a lot.

I do not accept that all sports and all limits within any given sport have equal risk of chronic or lingering injury. Therefore there is an element of choice for each athlete, which sport and which direction to push in and on which scale. Raw power? Agility? Racecraft?

I submit to you that ski racers have significantly more development direction choices than sumo wrestlers, bodybuilders or power lifters do.

 

[Joshua S]

It seems to me, that many of the injuries could be less severe, if the courses emphasized the technical over speed. Someone of you probably knows for sure, but I'm guessing there are fewer serious injuries in slalom than in Super-G or Downhill.

 

[RoninSkier]

Fine, fine. But we're beyond that point now. Old sumo wrestlers all have injuries. Old keirin racers don't. Pushing against some limits leads to injury whereas pushing against others (like racecraft) doesn't.



I do not accept that all sports and all limits within any given sport have equal risk of chronic or lingering injury. Therefore there is an element of choice for each athlete, which sport and which direction to push in and on which scale. Raw power? Agility? Racecraft?

I submit to you that ski racers have significantly more development direction choices than sumo wrestlers, bodybuilders or power lifters do.

Bowling or golf vs boxing or skiing yes the level of injury risk & severity are different.
And I submit not all old cyclists are competition related injury free. You can get some pretty serious crashes - even in a ITT

I submit pushing against others is pushing against limits. Its natural and and to me a good thing. It gets bad with bad preparation, bad technique & bad advice.

Specific to ski racing it would be helpful if there was data collected on
- what type of injuries
- what race discipline
- etc
and by age groups, at what age, level of capability & sex

Then perhaps then develop more practical guidelines, to not limit high performance, but prevent or minimize injuries etc using better course setting, equipment stds that are sensible, sports medicine and science based coaching.

 

[James]

A lot of that data has been collected and published.

Women in soccer may be having more acl tears than in skiing recently.

 

[Swede]

That's an impressive box jump, especially for his age which I don't know.

He’s 59 in that clip (2015). The athletes of his era didn’t face the extreme forces of modern ski racing. The ones who crashed severely could get ”memories” but normal racing wear and tare did not create the knee and back problems of today. Speed is gentler on ghe body than tech, especially GS is a back buster. Stenmark had a tremendous fysique and has never stopped working. I guess he never will unless he also stops breathing.

 

[Swede]

A lot of that data has been collected and published.

Women in soccer may be having more acl tears than in skiing recently.

Women’s knees was (atleast by our federation) highlighted some 8-9 years ago and a special work out program was developed for female athletes to mitigate knee injuries.

 

[RoninSkier]

Women’s knees was (atleast by our federation) highlighted some 8-9 years ago and a special work out program was developed for female athletes to mitigate knee injuries.

Need more applied science in our sport and in all sports - its starts with the right data collection & analysis - the essence of sports medicine and good coaching/instruction.

 

[Mark1975]

You think World Cup racing is hard on the body? That ain't nuthin'! You should try BEER league! Now THAT is dangerous! Ask your doctor!

There is actually a lot of truth to that statement. Some of the worst injuries I have seen were at beer league races. (1) Simply because the average age is older, and things break or tear easier with age. (2) the courses are short and are an all out sprint. You need to push every turn if you want to have a fast time. (3) Many racers are actually able to push things more than when the may have been so-so teenage USSA racer, simply because they have more years of skiing and running gates under their belts. (4) Most people have a full time job and family and simply don't have the time to put in the off season dryland training, so they are automatically at a higher risk of injury.

 

[Paul Lutes]

That's exactly why I refrained from such silliness in my tender golden years!

 

[Tony S]

There is actually a lot of truth to that statement. Some of the worst injuries I have seen were at beer league races. (1) Simply because the average age is older, and things break or tear easier with age. (2) the courses are short and are an all out sprint. You need to push every turn if you want to have a fast time. (3) Many racers are actually able to push things more than when the may have been so-so teenage USSA racer, simply because they have more years of skiing and running gates under their belts. (4) Most people have a full time job and family and simply don't have the time to put in the off season dryland training, so they are automatically at a higher risk of injury.

That's exactly why I refrained from such silliness in my tender golden years!

Yes and yes. Of course that's not what I was thinking when I posted.

 

[sparty]

There is actually a lot of truth to that statement. Some of the worst injuries I have seen were at beer league races. (1) Simply because the average age is older, and things break or tear easier with age. (2) the courses are short and are an all out sprint. You need to push every turn if you want to have a fast time. (3) Many racers are actually able to push things more than when the may have been so-so teenage USSA racer, simply because they have more years of skiing and running gates under their belts. (4) Most people have a full time job and family and simply don't have the time to put in the off season dryland training, so they are automatically at a higher risk of injury.

I've also seen beer leagues run in conditions where a USSA jury meeting would be really short and consist solely of a vote to cancel due to snow conditions.