When you are on the mountain, it is essential to protect yourself well against potential injuries. In sport, particularly high intensity sports, back protectors play a key role in reducing the chances of serious spinal injuries. Simply put, the spine is a critical part of your body.
It gives your body support, structure, the ability to move freely, flexibility, and protects the spinal cord. The back is one of the most vulnerable parts of your body while snowboarding. That's why back protectors are a crucial part of your gear. These back protectors are designed to protect your spine from impact and blows, allowing you to snowboard with confidence.
Using back protectors is an important investment in your safety and well-being while snowboarding. With their high-quality materials, innovative designs, and excellent protection, these back protectors provide the confidence you need to hit the slopes with certainty.
Whether you ski, skate or snowboard, winter sports can take a toll on your joints and an injury on the slopes or ice can bring your season to a screeching halt. If you're planning on skiing or snowboarding this season, don't forget your protective gear.
Why Choose a Back Protector?
Many skiers hunch over while going down the slope to lower their center of gravity and wind resistance. However, this position may also strain the back and cause pain. To prevent injuries from occurring or to help the healing process of injuries, braces, and supports are beneficial. Braces can grant protect and help to heal these injured areas. To stay healthy and heal more fully for the snowboarding season braces and supports are excellent to keep you ready to shred some powder.
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Key benefits of using a back protector:
- Injury Prevention: Protects the spine from impacts and blows.
- Confidence: Allows you to snowboard with greater assurance.
- Comfort: Modern designs offer excellent protection without sacrificing comfort or freedom of movement.
Modern skis can amplify the impact of catching an edge, creating a spring effect that can launch you unexpectedly. Snow coverage is often thin, with rocks and trees closer than they appear.
Types and Features of Back Protectors
Back protectors are designed to meet the needs of snowboarders with different riding styles and are equipped with various features that contribute to their effectiveness and ease of use.
Today’s back protectors are lightweight, flexible, and so comfortable that they feel like a second skin.
Example of back protector:
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- Flexforce Pro: This model offers flexible protection with a focus on comfort and freedom of movement.
In 2006, SHRED. became the first brand to launch soft protection when rigid, hard plastic turtle-shell designs dominated the market. Before the development of this new model, manufacturers constructed the sole back protector from hard plastic, resembling a turtle shell in design. Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) assisted Carlo Salmini, Co-Founder of SHRED.
The team collaborated with international specialists in foam technology, leading to significant enhancements in shock absorbing rubber foams. Salmini expresses that innovation continues. He stated, “A few years ago, while surveying our athletes, we discovered that the biggest hurdle to the widespread adoption of back protectors wasn’t their level of protection-it was their comfort.
How Do I Choose The Right Back Protector? - The Winter Sport Xpert
Additional Protective Gear for Snowboarding
Besides back protectors, consider other protective gear to enhance your safety on the slopes.
Snowboarding Knee Braces
Knee injuries are also very common in snowboarding because the feet are bound to the snowboard. Sometimes the snowboarder may go one way while the board goes another! A snowboarding knee brace can be beneficial in preventing and recovering from such injuries.
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ACL, Anterior Cruciate Ligament, and PCL, Posterior Cruciate Ligament, strains or tears can occur while snowboarding. These ligaments are responsible for stability in the knee. Both can occur from the twisting of the knee joint. ACL injuries generally occur due to more expertise jumps while snowboarding and twisting the knee.
When the ACL gets injured normally a popping or cracking sound is heard from the knee. PCL injuries happen from impacting the front of the knee or hyperextending the knee. In all these cases a good knee brace for snowboarding or snowboarding knee support can help to prevent these injuries or to help the healing process to get a person back in riding shape.
The best knee brace for snowboarding is a great functional snowboard knee brace. It works well if wanting to avoid injuries before they happen or as a post-injury brace if not wanting to further hurt an injury or reinjure a healed ligament. With its active thigh cuff (ATC) it allows good movement as the brace moves with the muscle.
Snowboarding Wrist Braces
Falling is a part of snowboarding. The natural reaction when falling is to put out your arm to brace the impact with the snow. However, this puts your wrists at risk for injuries such as sprains and fractures.
Wrist injuries are the most common injury sustained by snowboarders and happen from falling. Wiping out or biffing happens a lot in snowboarding, especially when beginning. When wiping out the normal response of the body is to throw the hands out to catch oneself making the wrists the center of the impact and pressure. Doing so can lead to strains, sprains, and fractures in the wrist.
The common snowboarding wrist injuries include strains, sprains, and fractures. Strains are where damage is done to the muscle in the wrist by stretching it too far or tearing it. Sprains are similar except they affect the many ligaments in the wrist. Fractures are bone-related injuries in which the bone breaks and they can happen in many different ways. A fracture is a snowboarding wrist injury that can lay a snowboarder up for a while.
When it comes to a wrist guard for snowboarding, lightweight wrist braces provide good protection in case of a fall while allowing finger flexibility to get out of their bindings.
Other Important Gear
No one wants to be hitting the trails hard and then have to call it early because your feet are cold or have a tingling in your toes. A good sock should provide a rider with warmth and blood flow, not just one or the other. These snowboard socks, thanks to carbonized charcoal and germanium anion technology, increase blood flow, which reduces pain and fatigue. They are also a warm fit and breath easily making the foot comfortable in its boot, making them the best snowboarding socks when it comes to thermoregulating.
SHRED. Back Protectors
SHRED. Is keen on elevating the use of back protectors amongst all ages, events, geography and level. Carlo Salmini, Co-Founder & CEO at SHRED. Salmini further explained, “Whether you’re skiing slalom, freeskiing in the Midwest, or just cruising with friends, the risks are real.
The company is encouraging young children to be in them and have created smaller back protectors to fit youth bodies. Ligety, a father of three, articulates the importance of equipping his children with back protectors: “With a 7-year-old and twin 4-year-olds who love to ski, safety on the slopes is always top of mind for me. Here’s why: kids think back protectors are cool. My boys feel like superheroes wearing them, testing their gear by bumping into each other and having a blast. As a parent, I can’t ignore how crowded the slopes get or the risks of someone losing control and sweeping them out. Back protectors are more than just safety gear-they’re something kids actually love wearing.
SHRED. Back protectors are certified under EN 1621-2, the only official standard that certifies back protection for sports and motor sports. Level 1 is the minimum standard, offering excellent impact protection while prioritizing comfort and flexibility.
Skiing Braces
Injuries are bound to occur with such a sport, especially in the knees due to swift cuts going wrong and from bad falls. The right braces and splints can help heal injuries sustained while skiing and to get the skier back out in the snow. Injuries located at the knee, thumb, shoulder, back, head, and neck can all occur in skiing. It just takes one unfortunate bad fall.
Skiing Knee Braces
Knee injuries and ligament tears are actually quite common in skiing, since sometimes the leg may turn one way while the ski is turned another. In the case of a knee injury, a good skiing knee brace can help to protect and heal the injury. Injuries to the MCL, Medial Collateral Ligament, are the knee injuries most likely to occur to skiers. A twisting of the knee, normally for skiers when the lower leg pushes out from the upper leg usually due to the snowplow method of skiing, causes sprains to the MCL. Therefore beginner and early intermediate skiers are at a high risk for this injury.
Injuries to the ACL, Anterior Collateral Ligament, have become more prominent in skiing. Injuries occur to the ACL when the knee gets twisted or, hyperextends. Normally a pop is heard when the ACL becomes hurt. The ACL is injured or torn more often when a ski catches an edge.
A knee brace for skiing can help the knee heal after an injury or surgery. Some of the best knee braces for skiing include the compression knee brace. This brace is a charcoal, bamboo, and germanium blend that allows for good blood circulation and temperature control while giving the needed support for a healing knee. This brace is a great knee support for skiing before and after an injury and is light so it won’t slow you down. This knee brace is good for healing during the recovery from an ACL tear or another knee injury.
Skiing Back Braces
Many skiers hunch over while going down the slope to lower their center of gravity and wind resistance. However, this position may also strain the back and cause pain.
Skiier's Thumb Braces
Gamekeeper’s thumb, also known as skiers thumb, is the most common upper body injury to a skier. Gamekeeper’s thumb occurs when the thumb is pushed out from the hand and the UCL, or ulnar collateral ligament, is damaged. The UCL is the ligament, which gives the thumb its pinching power. For a skier, this happens to when he/she falls and puts his/her hands out to catch oneself while still holding ski poles.
Fortunately, there are skier’s thumb braces that can help in the healing process and help protect the thumb. The brace offers wrist mobility while giving stability and support to the thumb and thumb base. Another good option for gamekeeper’s thumb and is also ideal for a broken thumb splint. This splint keeps the thumb and wrist stabilized and immobilized. Yet it is breathable and a comfortable brace.
Ski Socks
No one wants to be hitting the trails hard and then have to call it early because his/her feet are cold or have a tingling in your toes. A good sock should provide a skier with warmth and blood flow, not just one or the other. These skiing socks, thanks to carbonized charcoal and germanium anion technology, increase blood flow, which reduces pain and fatigue. Socks are also a warm fit and breath easily creating comfort for the foot in its boot, making these socks for skiing the best when it comes to thermoregulating.
Bauerfeind Sports Back Support
There are many back supports and braces out there that claim benefits like comfort, pain-relief, and compression. However, not many of them can provide all of those benefits at once while providing freedom of movement to athletes.
Whether you are hitting the slopes or training for your next competition, the Bauerfeind Sports Back Support lets you move with ultimate comfort. The light and airy knitted fabric makes this support feel more like a second skin than a stiff back brace. Plus, the flat abdominal fastening feature makes putting this support on a breeze thanks to its tightening loops.
After a particularly hard practice or a bad slip on the slope, our backs tend to not feel their very best. Instead of packing up the poles or hanging up the snowboard, athletes should consider wearing the Bauerfeind Sports Back Support. Reason being, this brace provides custom compression and back pain relief to help get athletes back on their feet. In fact, the soft pad of the support provides intermittent massage with movement to reduce trigger points and stimulate muscles.
Another one of the benefits that athletes can benefit from is the improved sensorimotor feedback provided by the lateral wings of the support. This combination of enhanced sensorimotor feedback and stimulation of the core muscles have a positive effect on posture without any risk of atrophy or discomfort. Not only will this help you feel better as you hit the slops, but it will also translated into higher confidence.
Ensuring Optimal Function and Longevity
Correctly installing and maintaining your back protector is important to ensure that it functions optimally and has a long lifespan.
Disclaimer
This information is provided for general information purposes and should not be relied on as a substitute for medical advice, evaluation or care from a qualified and licensed health care provider.
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