Wrist protection?

[speedster]

What is your favorite form of wrist protection to protect your hand from injuries from high speed falls, like skier's thumb? Apart from trying not to fall!

Are there good "wrist guards" that are actually helpful and yet not intrusive when skiing?

 

[oldschoolskier]

Skiers thumb is usually caused by improper use of ski poke straps. Any high speed falls that I’ve had the wrist was the least worry for injury, I would consider the spine protectors way more important.

Now if snowboarding, a wrist injury is extremely common, simple because of how you catch yourself in simple falls.

 

[speedster]

Skiers thumb is usually caused by improper use of ski poke straps. Any high speed falls that I’ve had the wrist was the least worry for injury, I would consider the spine protectors way more important.

Now if snowboarding, a wrist injury is extremely common, simple because of how you catch yourself in simple falls.

What's an improper use of ski pole straps? I use the LEKI Trigger S system, so no pole straps, and yet got the injury from a high-speed fall. I was fairly parallel to the mountain on a steep slope, and fell on to the mountain, landing on my outstretched hand, with the pole in it.

 

[François Pugh]

I broke a wrist doing a simple pole plant at a relatively high speed; don't do that.
I injured my thumb while not wearing the strap, but it took 50 years of trying very hard before I accomplished that.
I would not bother with wrist guards for skiing; just learn to fall on your forearms and not your hands.

 

[cantunamunch]

Marker used to do a grip that had 1/2" suspension travel under the palm, and it also put the thumb on top of the fingers instead of opposed to them.

Those poles were seriously heavy and most skiers never figured out the point. I have seen poles with suspension in the thumb ligament area since, but never one that repositioned the thumb on top of the hand.

I have a pair somewhere but if you search for Marker Twincam poles you should find it.

Wrist protection is a different thing entirely look at snowboard gloves or deflection controls like Flexmeter.

 

[raytseng]

Skiers thumb is usually caused by improper use of ski poke straps. Any high speed falls that I’ve had the wrist was the least worry for injury, I would consider the spine protectors way more important.

Now if snowboarding, a wrist injury is extremely common, simple because of how you catch yourself in simple falls.

You can still get minor sprains with no straps just because a life-long skier instinctively grips your poles if you're going to crash (so you don't have to go back to pick them up), ask me how i know.
Agree it is less important than spine (which is required for a lot of camps/teams) as that prevents a serious injury; but your thumb is still going to be a very common but non-serious injury.

It maybe possible to retrain one self to learn to just ditch your poles and get hands arms safe when crashing, but I don't know exactly how to do it; as I'm also a gripper. In comparison, my friend who came from snowboarding is instinctual a ditcher cause he learned falling on snow with hands free and open.

I don't think you need to get thumb or wrist protection if you are healthy; but if your thumb or wrist is already sprained , get thumb or wrist splints at least to wear while sleeping to speed up your recovery.

If you feel you may injure your thumb or wrist to the degree that you're looking for protection; ditch the poles and ski with no poles.


For snowboarders there is all kinds of protection and different levels, but for wristguards in particular I have dakine wristguards which is more of a soft-protector and not hard plastic to just take most of the impact; as I'm still a complete snowboarding noob. One of the instructors I was learning from ,had snowboarding mitts with built-in protectors as well which looked pretty cool. Definitely easier to use with loose mitts with long loose gauntlet cuffs, versus with 5-fingered gloves or short cuff.

 

[oldschoolskier]

What's an improper use of ski pole straps? I use the LEKI Trigger S system, so no pole straps, and yet got the injury from a high-speed fall. I was fairly parallel to the mountain on a steep slope, and fell on to the mountain, landing on my outstretched hand, with the pole in it.

I skied with old Kerma Team poles (the gold colored ones) that had the large grip bases, tops and break away straps, indestructible poles (still have them). I currently skied Gabel poles with an slight different version of the LEKI system (bought the thinking I was going to cut them to transition to shorter poles, nope ain’t happening).

Now in the LEKI (Gabel) type systems I can see the potential of an extremely small risk of skiers thumb in some falls.

Now between the Kerma grip vs a modern grip bashing knuckles and catching the thumb in a fall is a fair possibility with the modern grips (bash my knuckles once or twice).

Solution, Slalom pole guards. I put these on my poles so they look exactly like this. Now just slide on the guard. Its like full hand “brass knuckles”, just hang onto the pole and let the guard take the punishment. Added benefit is the swing wt moves a little further into the hand creating a lighter feeling pole.

Couple of little known fact is that most snowboard injury facts.

• Most wrist breaks occur boarding on the heel side, backwards fall trying to catch on hands.
• Wrists crack on first fall, pain may or may not occur.
• Wrists break on second fall on cracks prepared by first fall.
• Most of these injuries occur to beginners/intermediates at slow speeds

A city run ski patrol told me this. So @raytseng become an advanced boarder as quickly as possible, better yet stop knuckle dragging and stick with 2 boards .

 

[Carolinacub]

One other item of note. Most wrist injuries occur when you try to catch yourself on the palm of the hands. if you fall and land instead on a clenched fist usually you wont wreck the bones in the wrist. I don't board but I tell all the novice boarders that I meet on the lift to punch the snow when they fall and that'll help prevent wrist injuries.

 

[cantunamunch]

I meet on the lift to punch the snow when they fall and that'll help prevent wrist injuries.

Doesn't change the rotator cuff or clavicle injury rate tho.

 

[anders_nor]

I fucked my left wrist last day of school offpiste, n00bed out and forgot to remove straps, pole got cought in a tree, and stopped me, then crashed me into a tree.

2 weeks ago, xray didnt show fractures, awaiting MRI, but.. yeah we went in full lockdown, so at home with auchy hand :|

 

[raytseng]

One other item of note. Most wrist injuries occur when you try to catch yourself on the palm of the hands. if you fall and land instead on a clenched fist usually you wont wreck the bones in the wrist. I don't board but I tell all the novice boarders that I meet on the lift to punch the snow when they fall and that'll help prevent wrist injuries.

In my never-ever boarding class a couple years back, the instruction was to hug yourself because you're doing such a great job to learn snowboarding and just take the hit.
Easier said then done though....

A city run ski patrol told me this. So @raytseng become an advanced boarder as quickly as possible, better yet stop knuckle dragging and stick with 2 boards .

The ER doc in Tahoe Forest effectively told me the same and my board and snowboard boots are hung up for awhile and maybe forever(see concussion thread). It is very embarrassing when your chart and the triage whiteboard lists you as a Snowboarder instead of Skier, and every nurse or doctor begins the smalltalk chat with "so you are a snowboarder?..." Avoid just for that reason alone.

 

[Tony Storaro]

landing on my outstretched hand, with the pole in it.

One of the reasons I do not like Trigger S.

You can try Dainese D-impact snowboarding gloves with built in wrist protection. I have 'em but never had a chance to test how good are they in protecting from wrist injuries, thank God.

Another choice is Flexmeter which I also have but never used them for skiing, too bulky, I use them for inline skating instead and they work great.

 

[sky_chicken]

Professional violinist here, who's put a bit of thought into this. I tend to push myself pretty hard and fall frequently. On advice when I started skiing 5 years ago I cut the straps off my poles to avoid the thumb break that occurs when falling on the pole with open hand but a tight strap. The actual result was that I now grip the pole hard during a fall and punch the snow, which somehow tweaks my thumb anyway, or messes with my wrist.

I will be tossing the strapless poles (heh) this season and switching to straps, with the caveat that they are used properly: Hand up through the strap, grip both the strap and the pole. My goal as others have said here is to drop the poles, and land on my forearms or, preferably, cross my arms. The truth is this is a hard thing to practice, when the moment comes there's remarkably little time to reprogram the habit of years.

Edit: I forgot to answer the original question. I opted to go without a wrist guard because I think it moves the point that most likely will break from the wrist to the fingers. Seems to me that it is just replacing one problem with another.