Winter sports injuries and risk: expert recommendations of the Spanish Society of Sports Traumatology.

- The likelihood of injury is 3.9 injuries in 1000 skiers per day

- SETRADE recommend a good physical preparation and technique, but also sufficient rest before skiing

This year's cold and freezing temperatures have arrived in advance. When the Mercury fall, the snow makes its first appearance, and then when given the go-ahead to winter sports, is a key sports such as skiing.

There are many modalities practiced but the most popular and suitable for all ages include downhill skiing and snowboarding. The Society of Sports Traumatology (SETRADE) ensures that each of these activities requires a physically demanding and involves a very different injury risks.

Needless to say that when the ski season begins, there are many fans who are thrown without much thought to the tracks, without fulfilling the conditions suitable for this sport safely.

For SETRADE, one of the most basic measures to prevent injuries is standard practice throughout the year for some kind of physical activity that serves to strengthen and maintain lists the most vulnerable when skiing (legs, arms and spine).

Note that downhill skiing is the most practiced in the resorts, although it requires a good physical condition and technique. Given that an estimated 200 million people around the world practice this sport, the chance of injury is 2.6 to 3.9 injuries per 1,000 skiers per day. This high rate of injuries means that skiing is one of the sports with a higher risk lesion. Many of the injuries in skiing are produced as a result of lack of fitness of the athlete. Because it is a seasonal sport not practiced all year, the risk of traumatic injury is greater than in other sports activities. Skiing fitness and requires specific training that few fans often make, says Dr. Sanchez Marchori, president of the Society of Sports Traumatology.


To prevent these injuries, the Society of Sports Traumatology (SETRADE) recommended before putting on skis:

- Good physical preparation throughout the year, playing some kind of activity, particularly where they are involved joints, spine, limbs

- Prior technical training to acquire a good command should take lessons with a specialized monitor.

- Availability of appropriate ski equipment in good condition, with well-controlled bindings and goggles with glass screen UVA rays to prevent eye damage and use sunscreen to avoid sunburn.

- A pre-session warm ski including joint flexibility exercises. The intensity of physical exertion during the skiing will be progressive while the joints are heated in the first downs.

- Ski slopes of the evolution of the other skiers to avoid collision.

- Allow physical activity to see the first signs of tiredness.

- Get enough rest. In case of injury later in the day, may be due to fatigue or by lack of sleep or excessive physical activity.


Furthermore, note that the most common injuries suffered by skiers are often the vertebral column, although the percentage of a serious injury is very low. The upper extremities are also affected in falls, although the snowboarders suffered three times more than skiers. In this regard noted that children are the ones who suffer most, reaching 79% reach of all injuries.

Another characteristic lesions of skiers is the sprained thumb by ligament tears. It occurs in 7 to 10% of those who practiced this sport, and occurs in a fall on the hand with a clenched fist grasping a cane.

However, the leg is where they occur most ski injuries, being frequent fractures of the tuberosity of the talus in the case of practitioners of snowboarding, and downhill skiing, medial ligament strain or injury the same in its proximal insertion (point of skiing), along with tibia fractures represent the most common.