Wakeboarding, Surfing & Waterskiing

About

Wakeboarding is a popular and growing sport, so much so that it may even make its way into the 2020 summer Olympic games. While the flips, spins, inverts and other awe-inspiring stunts of the sport are thrilling, the high-energy nature of wakeboarding paired with the board’s wide surface area and fixed bindings leaves you at risk of a number of wakeboarding injuries. Most Common Wakeboarding Injury The most common wakeboarding injury is a laceration to the head, accounting for around 25% of all injuries from the sport. Next up is concussions, accounting for around one in nine of these water sports accidents. With wakeboarding, there is a higher risk of “catching an edge,” with the result being the slamming of a person into the water, with the head bearing the brunt of the impact. Upper Body Wakeboard Injury If you are lucky enough to escape a concussion from slamming the head against the water during a wipeout, you may still sustain a strain to the tissues of the neck that causes pain and stiffness. In more severe cases, consider using a neck collar for a period for extra support and to allow healing to occur. New tricks, frequent falls and simply the stress placed on the low-back from being pulled behind a boat can also cause back pain. You may simply need to take a break from wakeboarding so that healing can occur. In some cases, this might include the use of a lumbar back brace to lessen stress on the tissues of the spine. Shoulder dislocations are another possible upper body injury with wakeboarding, accounting for an estimated 5% of accidents associated with such sports. After the shoulder has been put back in place by a medical professional, the extra support may be needed for an athletic shoulder compression brace . Wakeboarding Knee Injury and Other Lower-Extremity Problems Ankle sprains are also a fairly common wakeboard injury, as a wipeout or bad landing can twist the joint out of its normal range of motion. For that reason, BraceAbility offers a neoprene