[Closed] Are back injuries on the rise? What can we do?

I feel like these cases are on the rise or that may just be the power of social media bring these stories to more peoples eyes.

I think there's a big element of this going on, but that's just gut feeling as don't have stats to hand...

 But the key question is how can reduce this risk?

- Ride slower/more carefully

- Wear protection

That's about it*, you can do as much or as little of either option as your personal risk appetite allows. I'll add 'improve skills' in there as a possibility but that can just allow you to get into more tricky situations in the first place so probably net-neutral impact, and the high-profile rider cases you might be referring to were hardly lacking in skills.

*Obviously in a racing setup you can add more crash pads to tress and such but ultimately only so much you cna do.

why these injuries are occurring?

People are falling off at speed and/or landing awkwardly

And are they on the rise?

Possibly, or just better/more widely reported in these days of social media?

Maybe from the advances in bike technology which allows us to ride harder trails at greater speed?

Maybe but people have always pushed their and their bike's limits a slow speed otb off a drop can cause as much damage as a high speed one. In fact I've always suffered fewer injuries crashign at speed and sliding than in slow speed ones where I hit the groudn like a sack of shit.

But the key question is how can reduce this risk?

ride bridleways.

Humans are travelling faster and flying further.

The risk is from moving quickly in close proximity to lots of pretty solid and immovable object, trees.

Look at high speed sports like F1, superbikes, downhill skiing and the like and mostly they've designed out of the courses things that you really don't want to hit at speed so where there's a risk of losing control there's a runout plus deceleration areas and padding. There are exceptions like the Monaco and IoM TT circuits but in general the above holds true and certainly for new circuits.

Even in a car, you really don't want to be colliding with a tree, it doesn't end well.

I received a serious spinal fracture on a road bike. Thing is my back broke without any direct impact.

A car cut across my path and the deceleration forces caused my spine to flex too much splitting the L1 and T12 in two. I knew something was wrong as the pain set in immediately even before I hit the ground.  No amount of protection would have stopped it.

I was very lucky. No permanent spinal cord damage but My L1 was crushed and it' now a cheese wedge shape. The bit near the spinal cord did fuse back together.

I'm in lots of pain still nearly 2.5 years later but I'm walking and cycling. Can't run properly though.

I was wondering the same thing. Actually I was wondering what 'going big on the Hope line' meant in relation to Callum Russell's injury, and whether it's something that just went badly wrong, or if there was something inherently dangerous about that line as I've heard various online comments about it. Note - this would be purely for the sake of trying to reduce the chance of incurring a similar injury not to apportion blame anywhere.

Possibly because riders are trails are getting faster, but the tracks haven't changed in terms of safety to suit. Huge senders and fast berms are often surrounded by trees.

The risk is multiplied by two things mainly:

1) The speed

2) The amount of potential objects to hit or hang up on in a crash.

A lot of the riders nailing themselves seem to be enduro riders as well....so without seeing the stats, possibly a mix of better reporting, unsuitable bikes attempting to be ridden at DH speeds (at the end of the day, 8 inches of squish gives you a fair amount of more room to get away with mistakes - especially nose heavy landings from jumps) and the tracks evolving.

For the everyday rider? Lear to lift properly and it will do more for your back than worrying overly about spinal injuries

Stop wearing helmets.  You feel more vulnerable and get your thrills at lower speed so if / when you do crash the impacts are smaller.

Feel vulnerable - stay safer.  Feel safe, take more risks

*this may not be an entirely serious suggestion

Worst crash I ever had was when I was fully Ninja Turtled up with full face motocross helmet and Dianese suit.

Concussion, smashed collarbone.

Mind you, worst injury I ever did was snapping my hamstring in the dads race at sportsday.

Riding/showing off in front of friends/kids. Dangerous.

Stop wearing helmets.  You feel more vulnerable and get your thrills at lower speed so if / when you do crash the impacts are smaller.

Feel vulnerable – stay safer.  Feel safe, take more risks

*this may not be an entirely serious suggestion

The problem with that is, crashes can be entirely unpredictable and the worse ones can happen when you are simply not concentrating.

The best advice is to have conscious situational awareness about what it is you are doing and what speed it is that you're going at. Risk assess everything, do you really want to be doing 20mph through trees if you aren't a racer? It only takes 140lbs of force to hyperextend and break cadavers necks in crash tests, that is **** all.

If you take the conscious situationally aware risk based approach, you can start to look at other protective devices, eg neck braces - which should help mitigate all but impacts directly to the top of the head and down into the spinal column.

I simply back off a lot in trees or anywhere that I'm going to suddenly stop if I go over the bars, to speeds where everything doesn't happen instantly - and just concentrate on enjoying hitting the right lines and riding smoothly.

TBH, if you do feel like you're are subconsciously effected by protective gear a lot - then I'm a proponent of the wife beater shirt, DH lid, neck brace and maybe a back protector approach - with nothing on for your elbows and arms.

It's still going to ****ing hurt if you come off, but you've done what you can to protect the most vital areas.

Everyone is affected by risk compensation.  feel safer, take more risks.  Its a well known psychological phenomenon and applies  all over from car driving to building work to mountainbiking to crossing the road

I read something recently, might have either been on this site, or linked from here, about the growth of social media and youtube encouraging people to push harder / bigger / higher / further in the endless competition for attention on instagram etc.

Whether that's pro's trying to make a living from it or locals trying to get "likes" from their mates.

And also, maybe, the visibility of it - now you've got redbull, youtube etc showing you lots of riders doing lots of "rad" things where I guess BITD the only thing most of us saw was our mates cocking up a shonkily built jump down the local woods..

Dunno if I think it's true, but it's certainly an interesting point, imo.

I broke my back just over 4 years ago.

In no way could I be described as an adrenaline seeking thrill junkie. Im just a middle aged bloke who used to enjoy cross country riding.

I still don’t really know what happened, other than I went over the bars and it hurt a lot. In my hospital ward there were people who tripped getting out of bed or slipped getting out of the bath.

I’ve decide to keep getting up in the morning, but for safety reasons I never have a bath!

Not really sure what the conclusion is. Accidents happen?

Dunno if I think it’s true, but it’s certainly an interesting point, imo.

Opinion, causation and correlation?

Without youtube, go pro and hi def phone cameras all of this would be lost to the world like a tree falling in the forest. Who knows what used to happen it wasn't recorded and reported.

Everyone is affected by risk compensation.  feel safer, take more risks.  Its a well known psychological phenomenon and applies  all over from car driving to building work to mountainbiking to crossing the road

So that's why there are more crashes and deaths in Formula One now than during the 60s!