Shoulder Injury Survey
From KayakWiki
I have read several accounts about shoulder injuries during roll practice. As a preventive medicine physician, I am interested in data concerning rolls, injury, and type of paddle used during the injury. To make the data useful I need entries from people who have injured themselves and from people who have injured themselves.
For the purposes of this survey, a shoulder injury is any problem with your shoulder which required you to stop attempting rolls for at least 3 days. I do not need your name... only the estimated number of rolls you have attempted in your career, the number of times you have injured yourself, and what you were using to roll:
The first two entries below are just examples. Beginning with the third entry, is real data. Your data should not be tracked to you and should be harmless regardless. Just make an entry in the next spaces below which have rolls, injury, paddle type not yet replaced.
The poll was opened on 28 October 2002. First anaylysis will be in November.
| # rolls attempted | # injuries | What were you using? (Euro paddle, Greenland paddle, hand roll, other) |
|---|---|---|
| 100 | 1 | "euro" paddle |
| 400 | 0 | GP |
| 1000+ | 0 | Euro, hand & other |
| 1000+ | 1 | Euro, GP, hand & other--1 minor injury Euro (poor technique) |
| 100's + | 2 | 1 euro, 1 GP (poor technique) |
| 1000's | 0 | GP, throwing stick, euro, hand |
| 1000's | 1 | hand roll (bad technique while learning; swept arm too far aft) |
| 150 | 1 (short bicep tendinitis) | Poor technique - Oversized GP - High brace with outer arm extended |
| 1000+ | 0 | Hand, stick, euro, greenland, wing, canoe |
| 500 | 0 | Mostly Euro, w/ some Greenland; strains yes, injuries no |
| 45 | 0 | Euro, GP - some persistent soreness, but no injuries as defined. |
| rolls | injury | paddle or hand or other |
| rolls | injury | paddle or hand or other |
| rolls | injury | paddle or hand or other |
| rolls | injury | paddle or hand or other |
| rolls | injury | paddle or hand or other |
| rolls | injury | paddle or hand or other |
| rolls | injury | paddle or hand or other |
| rolls | injury | paddle or hand or other |
| rolls | injury | paddle or hand or other |
Analysis Done on 4 November:
10 people posted. 5 of them stated they had an injury as defined in the original post. One of them had two injuries. (If you are serious about learning how to roll, you may have a 50 percent chance of having an injury sometime. Your risk of having two injuries drops to 10 percent.)
Over 5400 rolls are represented in the survey. (Risk during any roll is about 1/1000, though this risk may be weighted toward the beginning of the rolling experience.)
Of those with an injury, 3 had their injury with a euro paddle, 2 had their injury with a GP, and one had injury while doing a hand roll. Nearly everyone attributed their injury to poor technique. (So we all agree that using good technique reduces the risk of injury a lot.)
