Minimize Skiing Soreness

December 20, 2004 4:47 PM

Going skiing/snowboarding in about a week with no real experience save two painful days last year (but I have the basics down now) - any suggestions how to minimize the pain this time around?
posted by casarkos to sports, hobbies, & recreation (22 comments total)

Stretch thoroughly before and after. Ibuprofen and a hot tub (if possible) after.

Are you skiing or snowboarding? Two days last year will probably be sufficient to avoid significant pain skiing, but you can expect quite a few bumps and bruises on a snowboard with only two days' experience.
posted by mr_roboto at 4:55 PM on December 20, 2004

don't fall.
posted by bakiwop at 5:07 PM on December 20, 2004

Try to stay standing up. Much less painful to travel down the hill in an upright position.

Unsnarkily, take it easy.

Don't just go straight to the top and bomb the biggest green you can. Do a warm-up or two on the bunny hill. I've found this key to re-learning what can go wrong, especially when snowboarding. When I imagine myself doing it in my cube at work, I forget all about the back-edge digging in (if I'm facing the hill). But then, on my first test-run of the day, I remember -- oh, I remember. I just take half an hour to remember what it "feels like" to ski or snowboard. Then I'm ready...

I'd also recommend not switching back and forth. If you're only out for a few days again (3 or fewer, say), I'd pick a sport and stick with it. Just because both skiing and snowboarding use laminated sticks to get down a snow-covered hill, they're really not at all similar. So getting better at one will probably make you worse at the other. When and how to shift your weight are drastically different. So I'd start one way and stick with it, or switch as early as possible.

Have fun!
posted by zpousman at 5:08 PM on December 20, 2004

"don't fall."

Well, yeah. But you're going to fall.

Try to do it on the uphill side of your board.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 5:21 PM on December 20, 2004

When snowboarding make sure to keep your knees bent always. I performed several flyswatters (perfectly named wipeout) at the same spot near the bottom of a run, until I realized it was because I felt like the run was over and was standing up to relax. Standing up, I'd lose the ability to control, catch a downhill edge and Whammo!
posted by Manjusri at 5:25 PM on December 20, 2004

For snowboarding, what helped me in the beginning was a set of rollerblading protective gear under my ski clothes. Armored knee & elbow pads eliminated most bruising. Wrist guards prevented painful strains in backwards falls. You can't really catch yourself without hurting the wrist, so immobilizing them a bit helps you learn to actually fall better.

Within a couple of weekends I didn't need most of it anymore -- but I still wear the kneepads, as I prefer to rest on runs by kneeling rather than sitting in the snow.

I've also heard that most vacationers are sore and beat by the third day because they don't rest enough on the second day. The theory is you should take part of your second day to let your abused muscles recover, then resume activity on the 3rd day. (Repeat as neccessary.)
posted by Tubes at 5:29 PM on December 20, 2004

As a die-hard, hardcore skiier this might sound funny but might I suggest that you stick to snowboarding?

The learning curve for skiing is exponential and long indeed whereas the opposite (until you hit very good intermediate) is true for snowboarding.

After a couple of days you'll be able to tackle runs that would take you much longer to master as a skiier. Better still if you get a fresh snowfall you'll have a chance at tasting the orgasmic thrills of riding powder snow on a board - it's much, much harder to power ski.

Bottom line, IMHO you'll get more out of the mountain, more quickly on a tray - you will however be playing chequers rather than chess ;-)

Oh, and please buy yourself a helmit - they're cheap and I've had to take too many punters to expensive mountain hospitals with head injuries...
posted by dmt at 5:48 PM on December 20, 2004

Take a lesson. Seriously. I skated, surfed and skied for years and thought I could teach myself to snowboard. Well, maybe I could have, but it was so frustrating I quickly lost interest in trying. A one hour lesson in the morning was all I needed to enjoy myself the rest of the day.

Even if you're already doing OK, a lesson will make you better. The better you are, the less you fall (or at least, the more controlled your falls will be). The less you fall, the less you hurt.
posted by zanni at 5:57 PM on December 20, 2004

Take Ibuprofen before: it takes a while to reach full efficacy, and it reduces swelling before it reaches the point of pain. Ibuprofen is best used as a prophylactic, not a curative.

Wear a helmet. Speaking from painful personal experience (ie. massive head trauma), it's all too easy to lose control, panic, fail to fall, and tangle with the trees. If I'd been wearing a helmet I'd never have spent four days in I.C.U...

Take lessons. It's the shortcut to enjoyment, worth every penny. Indeed, you can probably get a package deal that couples lift tickets with lessons, giving you the best bang for your buck. Private lessons are better than group lessons, obviously.

Eat on the lifts. If you keep your blood sugar levels up, you'll have a far better time.

DMT, your spelling is trippy. :-)
posted by five fresh fish at 6:05 PM on December 20, 2004

I have heard that snowboarding is harder to start out with, but then once you've got it, you've got it.

Skiing is easier the first few times (your feet aren't locked in together, you've got poles for balance), but to really master it takes years and years and years.

So I suppose you should decide which is better for you, and then have some one teach you how to slow down in each turn. If you are falling at slower speeds you will be much less likely to get hurt.

(I've been skiing since I was 5.)
posted by superposition at 6:27 PM on December 20, 2004

The best thing to learn when skiing is to learn how to fall properly :)

I, too, have been skiing since I was around 5-ish and I always "enjoyed" the falls where I kind of slid into second base, as it were, or on my rear end. The worst falls are the flings forward and the splats on your face.

But, as others have said, lessons, even if you know the basics, are probably a great idea for an older (i.e. not a toddler or daredevil kid) skiier.
posted by stefnet at 6:40 PM on December 20, 2004

Just to chime in: I learned how to ski last year. The first day I fell hard about five times, and even though I still had fun, I could barely move the next day. A week later I went again, didn't fall at all, and was only slightly stiff in the hips the next day. Most of the pain comes from falling. If you don't want to fall, ski under control (take a lesson if you're not sure how) and stick to slopes you can handle. Skiing should be fun, not painful, right?
posted by bonheur at 7:08 PM on December 20, 2004

Snowboarding: when you're learning you're going to fall on your butt. Repeatedly. And it'll hurt after a day of that. Pad your ass. Bubble wrap works well.

I'll also recommend choosing skiing or snowboarding, not both. And get lessons.
posted by TimeFactor at 8:53 PM on December 20, 2004

Wear a helmet. I can't stress that enough. For some reason I almost never hit my head when I ski, but every fall I take on a snowboard seems to lead to a head-impact. I love my helmet more than Jesus.

Besides, it's wicked cool to have a place to paste stickers.
posted by docpops at 8:56 PM on December 20, 2004

As other people have said: take lessons, take lessons, take lessons! I don't know where you're going, but if I spend all day falling every 10 yards then I've just wasted $60.

I had a friend who wanted to snowboard his first time out, but didn't think he needed to take lessons. The rest of us (more experienced skiers) had to leave him behind most of the time because he was just too slow. He hurt, and he wasn't enjoying himself. But then an offduty ski instructor took pity on him and followed him down one run while giving pointers. Even after one run the improvement was substantial.

So take lessons, they will help. Sure, it might be another $50 for two hours, but when you're spending some $800 on the trip total, that's an insignificant amount.
posted by sbutler at 9:22 PM on December 20, 2004

This is really interesting coincidence. I tried snowboarding for the first time this sunday. In the process I nearly lost a good friend (actually he ignored all the insults I hurled at him for dragging me out there). I rented a butt pad with my gear, it's good but my hip bone still felt it. As for helmets, I'm unclear what sort of special skill (besides half-pipe tricks) would cause you to land on your head. I fell 100s of times in very creative ways but I always landed on my back side or my front side (ahh tasty snow).
What I learned is that snowboarding is like life, there's the easy way and the right way.

Easy: 1)Point board lengthwise downhill 2)Scream 3)??? 4) Profit

Hard: 1) Place board perpendicualar to slope 2) Fall on butt 3) fall on face 4) Repeat as desired
posted by Octaviuz at 9:30 PM on December 20, 2004

This was my experience:

After skiing all my life, I snowboarded for half a day, and just about died. I fell every 20 feet, and it took me 5 minutes to get up each time. I was using my abs so much getting up that the next morning I could barely sit up. My problem was the change in the use of my balance, but that's neither here nor there.

The next winter, I decided to give it another try. First day out, I got it. I was up all day, and while walking on the flats is still a pain in the ass, I love boarding.

I didn't take a lesson, and even though it probably would have helped, I don't think my learning curve would have been any less severe.

One thing I tell new boarders: It hurts a lot more when you fall at a slow speed -- you fall straight down and hit the ground hard. Falling at a faster pace allows you to slide for a bit. You may get a face full of snow, but as long as you don't a) hit a tree, b) try to break your fall with your hands (and break your wrists), the falls are much more enjoyable at a good clip.
posted by o2b at 9:37 PM on December 20, 2004

A little bit of a tangent, but perhaps for encouragement: When the snowboarding thing *clicked* for me, it was actually in a dream. After a couple of weekends hurtling & flailing down a local ski hill, I went to sleep one night with the images of each run fresh in my head and the muscle memory of each action fresh in my sore body. Somehow, while dreaming of more runs on those slopes, my brain figured out how to process all the little moments of success and failure and extrapolate what a good run should feel like. It had to to with the crouched stance, forward weight distribution, and trusting the edges. I woke up knowing I had gotten it, and when I got to the hill, I found I could now carve my way down like I had some idea what I was doing.
posted by Tubes at 11:14 PM on December 20, 2004

About 4 years ago a friend and I decided to try snowboarding for a day. We took a group lesson, but the instructor was some 12-year-old kid who, while he was a great snowboarder, really didn't have any clue how to teach other people to snowboard ("OK, now, turn!"). That day included catching a lot of downhill edges and a bruise on my right but cheek the size of a grapefruit. Not good times.

Last year, I decided to give it another go. I again took a group lesson, making sure that this time the instructor was at least my age (I'm 24). This experience was much better, first learning how to ride the back edge and control speed, then how putting weight on one heel or another caused the board to sort of pivot around that edge. Going from edge to edge was the most difficult, but as soon as I figured out it was more about shifting weight than digging edges in, things got a lot easier.

So my advice is, make sure your teacher is competent, and if you've never been before, be prepared for at least one day where you won't be able to do much and feel generaly awkward.
posted by mfbridges at 7:07 AM on December 21, 2004

there's a lot of good advice in here. As someone who skied a fair bit as a teenager (for about 5 years) and never got any good, I second the theory that snowboarding is much easier once you "get it". I was better on a snowboard after 12 days than after 5 years of skiing.

Helmets: get one. To the poster above who asked how you can hit your head? The easiest way is to catch your heelside edge when your body is facing uphill. whiplash

One thing that's important, is that you learn how to fall. Whether on skis or on a board, do NOT put your hands out to break a fall. Fall on your torso or shoulders. Using your hands is a sure way to break your wrist and/or fingers.
posted by sauril at 8:34 AM on December 21, 2004

Just remember that when you're carving on a snowboard, your shoulders need to lead any movement you're going to make with your feet. If you try to turn from toe to heel before your shoulders are aligned you'll lose control and most likely fall. Remember that your back foot is your control foot, and the front just leads. Also, I suggest you learn the following skills in this order before you attempt to learn how to turn, carve, etc:
1) FALL.
2) STOP.

Make sure you understand these two motions extremely well before you attempt anything serious. Knowing how to fall and stop well can save you some serious injuries.
posted by baphomet at 9:40 AM on December 21, 2004

Take a lesson, at least on your first day. Take more lessons if you have the cash and the patience. It will pay off -- bigtime.

And then at the end of the day, drink a black & tan.
posted by spilon at 2:36 PM on December 21, 2004