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Downhill
Defenses
For some guys, Fall offers more to look forward to than the return of football to the TV screen. With the promise of snow in the air, they're dragging skis out of the closet and getting ready to hit the slopes. Snow skiing is a great form of wintertime exercise, and over the years it has become much safer. With the development of better safety bindings and boots, one study of Vermont skiers has documented a 48 percent overall decline in injuries between 1981 and 1992. Today, fewer than three in a thousand skiers are injured for each day of skiing. In particular, those nasty spiral fractures of the leg have dropped 94 percent, and ankle injuries in children are far less common. The scene at the slalom isn't entirely rosy, though. Children are still far more likely to be injured than are adults: Their rate is nearly four per thousand. So much for the notion that youngsters are basically unbreakable. Their equipment is just as important as an adult's, and they need supervision and instruction to ski safely. There's an even more telling statistic for dads. As fractures have become less common, knee injuries have increased dramatically. During the same 1981-1992 period, adult skiers saw damage to the anterior cruciate ligament—the one that keeps you from being knock-kneed—jump 233 percent. According to orthopaedic surgeons, the new equipment directs force away from the ankle and leg and toward the knee. Proper adjustment and maintenance of the bindings that attach the boots to the skis is more important than ever. Improvements in safety have, in many cases, come through increases in mechanical complexity. New ski equipment should be assembled by qualified technicians who adjust binding-release pressure with measuring equipment. And each Fall—more often if you're a very active skier—you should have your bindings serviced and readjusted. Just because they worked last year doesn't mean that they will this year. Right along with proper equipment maintenance comes proper body maintenance. Make sure your body is well tuned before the ski season by spending some time strengthening your legs and improving your endurance. Strong legs will help protect your knees, and staying power will help you ski in control all afternoon. Take care of all your equipment, and the first day of the season won't be your last.
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