Rehab, Injuries and Kiteboarding
This section of KBX will teach you about injuries from kiteboarding or how to avoid an injury from kitesurfing. Especially elbow, shoulder, knee and ankles. But also your lower back.
Prehab and rehab are often very similar, but look at it this way. And injury keeps you of the water and you need rehab to get back out there. Prehab is for avoiding an injury or getting rid of some kind of pain caused by kiteboarding, but not enough to keep you off the water.
I don't consider injuries a part of kiteboarding. Even though it's an extreme sport, it's not that common to get injured. In 2004 Nickel made a fairly large study (over 200 kitesurfers over 6 months) on injuries in kiteboarding. For every 1000 hours of kiting they got 7 injuries (16 in competition) due to technical mistakes and over sized kites. A lot have happened with the kites since 2004 regarding safety, so the number might be slightly lower now. This is actually a very low number of injuries compared to other common sports like football, basketball and soccer. Rugby and lacrosse have about 30 injuries per 1000 hours of playing. Basketball and squash have about 14 injuries and outdoor running about 11 injuries per 1000 hours. High risk of injury sport is considered to be sports with more than 5 injuries per 1000 hour. So kiteboarding just barely makes the list. But when kiteboardes get injured, it's often more severe, than in other sports.
Check out the article here, click.
It's really important that you seek professional help, if you get injured. At KBX we don't have any miracle cures or some kind of knowledge, that no one else knows about. If you're in rehab, do what the doc or the physical therapist tells you to do. At the end of your rehab you can use KBX to become even stronger, than before your injury, and prevent the injuries from coming back
KBX content of injuries
- Elbow pain - tennis elbow
- Lower Back Pain - posture
- Knee injuries - ligaments and quadriceps tendinitis
- Ankle injuries - ligaments
The most common areas to be injured are:
- The foot, ankle and the knee (45%); injuries in this region occur when the rider is thrown from the board or the board is twisted under the rider by the force of a landing or by a wave.
- The head (18%) most head injuries occurred in those not wearing a helmet and wearing a board-leash which resulted in the board being jerked back into the head.
- Neck injuries included whiplash to muscle strain.
- Back pain/strain often occurred from pumping up the kite but may extend to spinal fractures from shore landing
- The chest/ trunk (16%)
- The upper extremity (18%): Injuries here range from simple overuse, tennis elbow or epicondylosis to shoulder dislocations
The type of injuries encountered with kiting
Contusions, lacerations and abrasions seem to make up the most common superficial injuries (37%) most often from being lofted on land or by a strong on-shore gust and then landing on rocks and shore structures.
Sprains and strains make up about 26% of the kite surfing related injuries.
Fractures make up 14% of injuries related to kiting.
So, in summary, the most common situation of injury usually seems to include an experienced kite-surfer, an on-shore wind and either on the initial launch of the kite or on a transition jump close to the shore.
Any areas may be affected by injury but for most kitesurfers the lower limb is most at risk.
Protection gear in the form of a helmet, a wet-suit and chest armor would still be highly recommended for the upper body.
Shoulder injuries are not that common as many kiters think. Ankle and knees are more likely to get injured.
www.KiteboardingExercises.com - Power 2 Progress
On this site you'll find:
- Instructional videos with exercises especially for kiteboarding
- Forum where you can ask about training, talk to other kiteboarders etc.
- Community where you can hook up, follow, talk directly to other users
- Create your own fitness program for kitesurfing
- Technique section for exercises and basic info for preventing injuries
- Learn about injuries
- Your own workout/kite session blog to help you progress in your training
- Nutrition and kiteboarding
- And of course our monthly newsletter
...and a lot more!
www.KiteboardingExercises.com - Power 2 Progress
