Leg injuries to newbies?

[udder 0]

I am looking to finish AFF in January but currently am trying to make the state rowing team. I know that under a 280 sq ft canopy I come in softly(as long as i dont do funky down wind landings or stupid shit), but I'm also aware that people can break themselves under canopy whether it me a manta 280 or a vx89. I'm also aware that as a newbie I will fuck up alot and may be liable to root my flares up...I will wear shoes with ankle support, (without hook thingys to catch lines and kill me) but am i relatively safe or just looking for trouble? Are there many jumpers seriously into other sport ?

Thanks

Pete

"In one way or the other, I'm a bad brother. Word to the motherf**ker." Eazy-E

[AggieDave 6]

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Anyone else seriously into thier sport jumping?

Nope.

Yeah, a lot of us around here are really into it. WAY into it.

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am i relatively safe or just looking for trouble?

YOU have to decide if its safe enough for you and your goals. There are many things you can do to keep yourself safe, but there are always things out of your control. So no one else can tell you "sure its safe, go for it" or "nope, you better not" you're going to have to make that decision yourself.


On the flipside, under large student canopies although you can kill yourself and you can hurt yourself, if you refrain from severe fuckups and be ready for a PLF, its easy to be ok. Start reaching with a leg and/or start fucking up, then you could very well break something.

So, the moral of the story is, go talk to your instructors, let them know about your concerns and then its time for you and yourself to have a "come to jesus meeting" about if you feel like skydiving is an acceptible risk at your current position in life.

--"When I die, may I be surrounded by scattered chrome and burning gasoline."

[Randy_H 0]

on my first AFF jump I didn't listen to the insructor and flared with the toggles out to my sides instead of in front of me which resulted in too much braking on one side of the canopy and I was crabbing over an inactive runway. It caused me to land hard on my right leg and resulted in severe shin splints which kept me from running for 2 weeks. I don't know how relevent this is, but I run every day and the time off sucked.

I learned to avoid landing on runways, and flare with the toggles in front of me. My landings are softer and smoother each jump

010010010110010101100001011101000111000001110101011100110111001101111001

[JohnMitchell 14]

Although it is not likely you'll get hurt, it is definitely possible to get hurt skydiving. If there is something really important going on in your life that you can't afford an injury right now, maybe you should put off jumping. Most pro athletes have clauses in their contracts prohibiting them from many sports, including motorcycling and skydiving.

Me, I've only been on crutches 4-5 times from this stupid sport.

[steve1 5]

There's nothing wrong with wanting some extra ankle support when you are learning. Boots may be a smart way to go as long as you duck tape any hooks etc. that might be a snag point. Learning to do a decent PLF is really important in my mind. A lot of people stick an arm or elbow out on a hard landing and end up fracturing an arm or wrist. A good PLF would prevent this.....Steve1

[firstime 0]

***I am looking to finish AFF in January but currently am trying to make the state rowing team.

There ia always a chance of injury regardless of your
canopy. How bad do you want that slot on the rowing
team?? HMMMM

[kelpdiver 2]

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There ia always a chance of injury regardless of your
canopy. How bad do you want that slot on the rowing
team?? HMMMM

Or how much will a week or two of missed/reduced practices hurt your chances of making the team? I recall one no wind landing where I stuck the landing rather than sliding it. Both my lower legs and my lower back felt a bit dinged up for a few days. Wouldn't be good for rowing.

[SkydiveNFlorida 0]

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There's nothing wrong with wanting some extra ankle support when you are learning. Boots may be a smart way to go as long as you duck tape any hooks etc. that might be a snag point. Learning to do a decent PLF is really important in my mind. A lot of people stick an arm or elbow out on a hard landing and end up fracturing an arm or wrist. A good PLF would prevent this.....Steve1

I'm not sure where I read it, but I did read someone suggest that having boots that prevent ankle injury might just increase the risk of other leg injuries. It seems logical to me, if there is force to be absorbed, and your ankles don't absorb it... what will? (maybe your tib/fib higher up, or worse, your knees??)

Just a thought. It is not difficult to hurt yourself in this sport, so if you have other obligations that prevent a 2-5 week walking layoff then you might want to think about what would happen if you did get hurt.

-A

[kelpdiver 2]

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I'm not sure where I read it, but I did read someone suggest that having boots that prevent ankle injury might just increase the risk of other leg injuries. It seems logical to me, if there is force to be absorbed, and your ankles don't absorb it... what will? (maybe your tib/fib higher up, or worse, your knees??)

The tib/fib break is common to skiers, and to clumsy hikers like my mom. 8 month recovery for her, though current practices would probably have a person walking well in 8 weeks. But those are particularly stiff boots.

[BillyVance 34]

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Learning to do a decent PLF is really important in my mind. A lot of people stick an arm or elbow out on a hard landing and end up fracturing an arm or wrist. A good PLF would prevent this.....Steve1

I wish I had the PLF option for diving out the door on an Otter, instead of sticking my hand out to keep from slamming my shoulder into the door frame when I lost my balance going out on a big way years ago. Broke the radius bone at the wrist.

Shit happens sometimes, but it's soooo much freaking fun!

Billy

"Mediocre people don't like high achievers, and high achievers don't like mediocre people." - SIX TIME National Champion coach Nick Saban

[skyhighkiy 0]

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I am looking to finish AFF in January but currently am trying to make the state rowing team.

don't jump. jumping can wait, this may be a once in a lifetime (or once in a year) opportunity. of course...if it were me....priorities, man

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if there is force to be absorbed, and your ankles don't absorb it... what will?

if the magnitude of a force is great enough to break bones in your legs while wearing ankle support, it would have broken them anyway. Think about how much shock your ankles could possibly "absorb" not much.
Yes, boots with ankle support are a great idea, it will stop bones from sliding out of place and stop ligaments from extending farther than they should. not only are you preventing breaking bones, which is the least of your worries, you're preventing hyperextension or flexion of anything, dislocating, ripping, tearing ligaments/tendons, twisting ankles. etc.


On another note. I've seen a student hit the ground w/ almost no flare under a 280 and saw another student flare all the way at about 30 feet. both PLF'd, and both came out with nothing more than a scrape from the grass.

Edit to add: Something to consider (regarding the skiers having tib/fib breaks) is how YOU will be comming in under a 280, compared to how much horizontal speed a skier has. Hopefully you're not risering it in yet?

BE THE BUDDHA!

[udder 0]

Thanks everyone for the replies. I been looking foward to jumping for soo long. I think I'll just get one or 2 sometime soon(next 2 or 3 weeks) and then lay it off till the seasons over or I get dropped

Pete

"In one way or the other, I'm a bad brother. Word to the motherf**ker." Eazy-E

[MarkM 0]

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I'm not sure where I read it, but I did read someone suggest that having boots that prevent ankle injury might just increase the risk of other leg injuries. It seems logical to me, if there is force to be absorbed, and your ankles don't absorb it... what will? (maybe your tib/fib higher up, or worse, your knees??)

Here's a good read about wrist guards in snowboarding, wrist injuries are common in that sport: http://www.ski-injury.com/wrist.htm#evidence

There's a good section that handles the "I heard that wrist guards merely transfer the force further up the arm and break the bones somewhere else" idea as well.

I think with ankle injuries it's as much about angle rather than force. Put force in the wrong way on an ankle and it'll pop or sprain. Ankle support I'd think would help prevent that. I've seen quite a few people break and sprain joints(mostly ankles, though one wrist) because it hit the ground and bent the wrong way. I'm sure everyone has heard about someone snapping or twisting an ankle because they hit a divit or mole hole while landing.

I wish the sport tracked minor injuries more closely. There are probably a lot of common small injuries that happen which could be reduced via gear or brief training.

To the orgional poster, I think that mostly I've seen students with bruises and generally I've seen more guys in the 50-300 jump range breaking legs(getting on faster canopies yet still not solid in bad situations), but my experience is pretty limited and that may just be because there are a lot more 50-300 skill jumpers than students. Personally I'd say my 1-50 jump experience range was at a pretty high risk for injury, and I did get a lot of sprains that would've affected me in other sports.

It's not just landings too, a bad opening can have you hurting for weeks and as a noob it's easy to pack a bad opening or have a crap body position which gives you a bad opening.

[dorbie 0]

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There's nothing wrong with wanting some extra ankle support when you are learning. Boots may be a smart way to go as long as you duck tape any hooks etc. that might be a snag point. Learning to do a decent PLF is really important in my mind. A lot of people stick an arm or elbow out on a hard landing and end up fracturing an arm or wrist. A good PLF would prevent this.....Steve1

I'm not sure where I read it, but I did read someone suggest that having boots that prevent ankle injury might just increase the risk of other leg injuries. It seems logical to me, if there is force to be absorbed, and your ankles don't absorb it... what will? (maybe your tib/fib higher up, or worse, your knees??)

-A

Well quite the opposite can happen too, without ankle support if your ankle does go over you can do additional injury to your knee. I'm sure this is how I tore my ACL (not skydiving but kiting a paraglider). My ankle went over to the outside (in a divot I think) creating a lateral bend in my knee and "pop". Anecdotal of course but we're talking about complex biological mechanisms, not a couple of ideal springs.

There are many different types of injuries and it's not only about absorbing forces in one place vs another. Keeping your joints in alignment to do their job by providing a little bit of support can help with all sorts of stuff like ligament and miniscus injuries that have the potential to take you out for longer or more permanently than some fractures.

FWIW I walked reasonably well a few minutes after my ACL tear, it seemed OK, the next day it was bad, swolen and immobile. I went to the doc a couple of weeks later when it didn't improve much and only then did I learn what I'd done. No injury or incident report was filed, I expect this isn't uncommon for the 'minor' stuff.

[LiveLifeGoJump 0]

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I am looking to finish AFF in January but currently am trying to make the state rowing team.

Be careful, you could drown yourself practicing for the state rowing team then that would spoil your future in both.

How do you get to rowing practice, by car? what if you have a crash? you'd be safer using the bus (unless it crashes or another passenger attacks you). Probably best walking (not much chance of being ran over or mugged is there!!!). Always eat home cooked meals in case you get food poisoning(make sure it is properly cooked, employ a food taster) . If you make it to the team don't go out to celerbrate (there could be trouble at the pub/club).

The point of this??? There are risks in everything we do but we still have to do the majority of them.

When you are jumping there is a limit to the number of others in the air at the same time as you (aircraft capacity).

Your skydiving risks are 'jumper/equipment mess up x jumpers on lift [4-24?).
Your driving risks are 'dirver/vehicle mess up x vehicles you pass on way to rowing club [1-1,000?).
Where is your bigest risk?


You will have to decide which is the important to you but there is no reason why you should give up either as long as you know the risks & put safty first.

Be safe in whatever you decide & good luck in the selections.

Get out, Land on a green bit. If you get the pull somewhere in between it would help.

[LiveLifeGoJump 0]

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I'm not sure where I read it, but I did read someone suggest that having boots that prevent ankle injury might just increase the risk of other leg injuries.

The way I heard it is,


you need boots/shoes that provide ankle support but still allow your ankle to be flexable because if the boots are too ridgid then this can increase the risk of leg injury.


So wear boots/shoes that reduce the risk of ankle injury and not boots that 'prevent' ankle injury.

Practice PLTs with stiff boot & support boots (trainer type) and you WILL notice the difference.

Get out, Land on a green bit. If you get the pull somewhere in between it would help.

[steve1 5]

I'm not sure where I read it, but I did read someone suggest that having boots that prevent ankle injury might just increase the risk of other leg injuries. It seems logical to me, if there is force to be absorbed, and your ankles don't absorb it... what will? (maybe your tib/fib higher up, or worse, your knees??)

I've had three sprained ankles due to jumping. Another time I had two bruised heels. All of these injuries were on old round canopies. The first was on my very first jump, in the army, under a t-10. I had good boots that were laced tight enough. The problem was that my feet were together, but my knees weren't. Ended up with a very badly sprained ankle.

The second injury, I loaned my frenchies to a friend who was making his first few jumps. French jump boots have great ankle support and lot's of cushion on the bottums. I figured I could stand up my Para-commander almost every time, even with tennis shoes. At any rate I ended up under a wildly oscillating 24 foot reserve and landed in the middle of a rock pile. Sprained both ankles bad. Man I wish I had my French Jump boots then, instead of those damn tennis shoes. I'd bet I'd have walked away from that one without the trip to the hospital.

French jump boots might be considered to have too much ankle support, but I don't think this ever led to other leg injuries.

In the army we always had to wear leather boots. They wouldn't let us wear our jungle boots, because they didn't have enough ankle support. Jungle boots have canvas sides. In hiking I would twist my ankle more often in them also. They just didn't have enough ankle support.

When I go hiking now I almost always wear a good leather boot that is laced fairly tight to prevent twisting my ankle. What a difference that makes on uneven terrain. I also pick a boot with a lower, wider heel. I know smoke-jumpers use White boots with high heels, and I'll bet this contributes to more ankle injuries. I low wide heel seems to prevent a lot of ankle injuries.

I know some hunters in Alaska who back pack heavy loads of meat. They often wrap their ankles under their leather boots for the extra ankle support.

Now if you were jumping in a boot that resembled a ski boot I'd agree....that would be too much ankle support.

Just some food for thought on ankle support and jumping.....Steve1

-A

[skyhighkiy 0]

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Your skydiving risks are 'jumper/equipment mess up x jumpers on lift [4-24?).
Your driving risks are 'dirver/vehicle mess up x vehicles you pass on way to rowing club [1-1,000?).
Where is your bigest risk?

Your biggest risk is in doing everything you're doing in every day life and adding skydiving, PLUS driving to and from the dropzone, to the equation.

also, to add to skydiving risks, since we're talking anything, throw in airplane crash on take off, NATURE, because you can't predict if you're going to get gusted randomly, thermals, if a long spot or wind shift will put you over a woodsy area.

add him screwing up during landing (something jumping in front, freaking out, toggle whipping it in to the ground), not plfing if something goes wrong, add that he's fresh in to the world of skydiving, which seriously increases his risk

add little things like exiting the plane...

BE THE BUDDHA!

[LiveLifeGoJump 0]

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Your biggest risk is in doing everything you're doing in every day life and adding skydiving, PLUS driving to and from the dropzone, to the equation.

Change skydiving to rowing & DZ to rowing club and you have just as many dangers.

It is said that in the UK 30 people die each year just falling out of bed.

Life is full of risks, you are not adding to them. All you are doing is replacing those you would be exposed to (in whatever activity you did instead of skydiving) with skydiving risks.

Who's to say that if a skydiver who died jumping had not gone to the DZ on that day they would not have died in some other incident?

DEATH doesn't take 'not today thank you' as an answer. When HE calls, you go!
Perhaps he has a brother who deals out the various injuries. Who knows?

Skydiving injuries aren't compulsor, some skydivers have done thousands of jumps without even breaking a fingernail.

Why did he start AFF if the risk of breaking legs worries him? Would it have been better if he left it until after he had gone as far as he wanted to with his rowing?

Get out, Land on a green bit. If you get the pull somewhere in between it would help.

[kelpdiver 2]

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How do you get to rowing practice, by car? what if you have a crash? you'd be safer using the bus (unless it crashes or another passenger attacks you). Probably best walking (not much chance of being ran over or mugged is there!!!). Always eat home cooked meals in case you get food poisoning(make sure it is properly cooked, employ a food taster) . If you make it to the team don't go out to celerbrate (there could be trouble at the pub/club).

The point of this??? There are risks in everything we do but we still have to do the majority of them.

Let's be serious. The risk of a student jumper having a sloppy landing causing short term leg or back discomfort is much greater than all of these others. And any injury will impact his training for a peak performance in January. If he was a more casual competitor, it wouldn't be a big deal. He could just not perform as well in a race or two. But this is a one time shot.

[LiveLifeGoJump 0]

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Let's be serious. The risk of a student jumper having a sloppy landing causing short term leg or back discomfort is much greater than all of these others. And any injury will impact his training for a peak performance in January. If he was a more casual competitor, it wouldn't be a big deal. He could just not perform as well in a race or two. But this is a one time shot.

This is why I ended my post with

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You will have to decide which is the important to you but there is no reason why you should give up either as long as you know the risks & put safty first.

Be safe in whatever you decide & good luck in the selections.

I believe that what will happen , will happen. WHAT you are doing at the time doesn't matter so do what you what.

Get out, Land on a green bit. If you get the pull somewhere in between it would help.

[skyhighkiy 0]

....you totally missed my point.

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Your biggest risk is in doing everything you're doing in every day life and adding skydiving, PLUS driving to and from the dropzone, to the equation.

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Change skydiving to rowing & DZ to rowing club and you have just as many dangers.

My point is that the more things you add in to the equation, the more likely you are to be injured. not that skydiving is more dangerous than other things. However, it is one of the riskier sports and, as you said, you have to get in to a car and a plane to get there. Besides that, that's one extra shower he's probably going to take to get out to the dropzone, I mean, geeze, look at the statistics on how many people get hurt/killed in a shower?

actually...I just realized how ridiculous of a topic it is thaht we're arguing about, I'm done

BE THE BUDDHA!

[riggerrob 558]

The logic for wearing high top boots is the same logic as for PLFs.
You will occasionally land hard enough to break one leg, but rarely hard enough to break both legs, so clamping your legs together makes them "splint" each other.
The same logic applies to high top boots. When you lace them up tight, they squeeze the tibia and fibula bones together, "splinting" them.

This means that most army boots are useless at providing ankle support. Since soldiers spend far more time walking than jumping, army boots are made loose around the achilles tendon - to prevent tendonitis. The primary reason army boots have high tops is to prevent pant legs from dragging in the mud.

In conclusion, if you worry about ankle injuries, wear French para-boots or high-top basketball shoes and lace them up tight.

[upndownshop 0]

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I'm not sure where I read it, but I did read someone suggest that having boots that prevent ankle injury might just increase the risk of other leg injuries. It seems logical to me, if there is force to be absorbed, and your ankles don't absorb it... what will? (maybe your tib/fib higher up, or worse, your knees??)

From my own experiences, I would take a broken leg over any ankle injury again.
I shoved the tib/fib out the bottom and side of my foot, literally shattered my ankle. Still swollen 11 years later. Pain everyday.
I have seen my brother bust both femurs at the same time, twice had double compounds to the fib/tib 4"s apart from the original, blown out his knee(same leg) and compound his left arm. He was always walking shortly after the repairs.
I guess what I am saying is that I believe that breaking a bone is better than breaking something in a joint, especially in the ankle where the technology isn't the same with hips, knees, or elbows for replacement.

If you can imagine it happening in Skydiving....It can.

Do whats important to you, the Skies will always be there...

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