Having trained with the Canadian National Aerial Skiing Team for the last few days I have asked a lot of questions and gotten to understand some of the finer points of the sport. My very first set of questions revolved around the incidences of injury. I was informed by Travis Gerrits (1) that the two major areas of injuries are in the lower back and in the knees. The lower back issues arise from the constant landings up right in the water causing the force to shoot up the spine as the athlete lands in the water. If the athlete does not land perfectly vertical upon entering the water from a 20- 30 foot drop the impact can severely strain the core muscles causing them to stiffen and ultimately create low back pain.
I understand that the Ski Team’s personal Trainer enforces a strict periodization plan with monthly adjustments to help keep the team injury free. It seems that core strength and control is very crucial in this sport. I believe that a gymnastics based conditioning program would greatly help reduce the incidence of lower back pain. Gymnastics is based on strength, stability and flexibility. In my opinion gymnasts are one of the strongest types of athletes because of their conditioning. If I were to train an Aerial Skier I would focus on a lot of isometric contractions. Nicholas Fontaine (2), one of the Aerial Ski coaches has explained to me that Aerial Skiing is all about staying straight into the jump, during the jump and on the landing. Based on his information I would work a lot of stability and core tightening drills. I would introduce balance drills where the athlete would be forced to maintain a tight core during an external push or a movement that would throw them off balance so that the athlete would learn to control the body and not relax the core muscles. Basic contractile strength is key as well as eccentric strength which is what causes control of a movement. If an athlete is unable to eccentrically contract their core without completely relaxing then the tendency will be to relax the muscles when the body is in the air to be able to help control the twist. If the body can be held in a constant contracted state during the entire flip the spine will be held solidly into place which will reduce the incidence of bad landings that cause back problems. Even when the athletes have a bad landing the muscles will be strong enough to withstand the impact over and over again.
Another issue I was told about by John (another member of team Canada) was knee problems. John told me that he felt his knees hurt a lot because of the fact after every jump the athlete has to walk up the stairs to the top of the jump again. If the athlete is going a day of triple jumps then the athlete is walking up about 8 stories to the top of the jump. The athlete’s on the team are told to perform a minimum of 15 jumps in the morning and also in the afternoon. 8 stories x 30 jumps a day = 240 stories a day. That is a lot of repetitive stress on the knee. That cannot be helping injury prevention. With all those stairs climbed, the members of team still are forced to do cardio session for an hour a few times a week to increase recovery rate and are forced to do athletic conditioning about 3-4 times a week. That is a lot of stress on the knees. John also felt that a lot of posterior, anterior and lateral shearing occurs at the knee joint upon entry into the water. Even a perfect landing would cause a lot of impact on the knee joint so imagine what is happening to the knees when entering the water short on the flip or over flipped. I would be willing to bet that is a large reason as well for the knee injuries due to the stress the ACL, PCL, MCL and LCL undertake upon landings. Upon my experience with aerial skiing I found that my knees hurt getting out of the water. There are platforms under the water that the athlete is suppose to step on sideways and get out of the pool. There are three steps and I found that there was a large current from the water bubbles and it was actually tough to go up the steps with the water dragging my feet down. I felt as if a tough force was pulling my knee joint apart. If someone creates a more efficient way of getting out of the water such as a incline where it is not so hard on the knees then less joint separation would occur. Along with that maybe an escalator or an elevator would help reduce the amount of repetitive stress on the knees. If even the athletes were instructed to only use elevator or escalator once every two jumps that would still give the knees a slight rest but still force them to be strong enough to withstand the impact of the high water landings.
A large part of injury prevention in any sport is flexibility. If the muscles are not able to move freely and easily then stiffness will occur and can cause damage to the muscles. If an athlete is not flexible enough the muscles have no give to impacts which is a lot more costly to an athlete then if the muscles can move freely and be able to recoil a bit after an impact. However if the muscles are too flexible then the joints are not strong and a subluxation or complete dislocation can occur. There is a fine balance within sport but the general conclusion is that most athletes are not flexible enough and a lot of tight muscles are the cause of a lot of problems. For an aerial skier the glutes , hamstrings, Iliotibial Band and the quads are very important leg muscles that I have been told by John and Travis are a large cause of injuries in aerial skiing. A lot of the skiers find that those muscles are very tight and get sore easily. I hope for their sake their trainer is enforcing a strict flexibility regimen to keep their muscles working smoothly and easily.
In any sport injury is a problem; it is just a matter of understanding the mechanics of the sport and applying basic anatomy to understand what areas of strength and flexibility are important. I hope to be a personal trainer for a national team one day so i have taken it upon myself to look into different sports to get a better understanding of what injuries are prevalent in certain sports.
2) http://www.freestyleski.com/page.php?la=en&pa=team&id=coaches
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