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When is the best time to learn the forward loop?
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rigitrite



Joined: 19 Sep 2007
Posts: 520
Location: Kansas City

PostPosted: Fri Aug 01, 2014 11:27 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

The reason to wear a helmet is not really to prevent head injury:
#1. It's to prevent you from drowning. The chances of you drowing in your car, sking, or mtn. biking are minimal to zero, but if you get hit on the head and knocked out on the water, you're probably gonna drown.
#2. Give you more confidence. Going 1/2 ass or bailing is how you get hurt. You need to go....FULL ass. If a helmet helps bolster your confidence: do it!

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rigitrite



Joined: 19 Sep 2007
Posts: 520
Location: Kansas City

PostPosted: Fri Aug 01, 2014 11:34 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

#3. Place to mount your GoPro.
#4. If you have a helmet with ear coverage (like my protec Ace) it will keep you from busting your eardrum, if you hit water ear-first at high speed. Busted ear drum is not serious, but it will keep you off the water for a couple weeks. If you let it get infected past the broken eardrum; now it's serious.

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boardsurfr



Joined: 23 Aug 2001
Posts: 1266

PostPosted: Fri Aug 01, 2014 12:09 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Wearing a helmet is often a good idea. But for learning loops, it is usually a bad idea. Chances are you will have some catapult-like landings on your back, where a helmet will just add weight to your head and increase the whiplash. I speak from experience.

If you're learning to loop at Hookipa, or are going for double or triple loops, wearing a helmet may be a good idea, though.
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Scharlack



Joined: 26 Oct 1991
Posts: 45

PostPosted: Fri Aug 01, 2014 12:10 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Best time to learn loopin....Ummmm, when your health insurance is paid up and before your bones get as old as mine???
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rigitrite



Joined: 19 Sep 2007
Posts: 520
Location: Kansas City

PostPosted: Fri Aug 01, 2014 1:49 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:
Wearing a helmet is often a good idea. But for learning loops, it is usually a bad idea. Chances are you will have some catapult-like landings on your back, where a helmet will just add weight to your head and increase the whiplash.


I think this is faulty logic. If you're at risk of whip-lash, then it's even more reason to wear a helmet. A good helmet adds negligable weight.

As for your experience; you have no control group in your experiment. In order to make a claim that a helmet is more dangerous due to whiplash, then you'd need to perform the exact same crash without a helmet, and then repeat multiple times to have a decent sample group, then test with different sized and weighted helmets.......
I suspect you might have been injured worse w/o a helmet.

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boardsurfr



Joined: 23 Aug 2001
Posts: 1266

PostPosted: Sat Aug 02, 2014 10:07 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

rigrite wrote:
...you'd need to perform the exact same crash without a helmet, and then repeat multiple times to have a decent sample group...

Thank you soo much for the free advice! All the things I must have missed while getting a Ph.D. in science and during my post doc at Harvard!

Although, on the other hand, I have learned some basic physics, which explain why a helmet does make whiplash worse. Just to make clear what I am talking about: you get thrown onto your back onto the water, and your head gets thrown backward when you hit. After a good crash, the neck muscles can be sore for a few days afterwards.

A Gath helmet weigh about 300 g dry. That is indeed small compared to the 4000-5000 gram a human head weighs, but you need to look a bit further at the physics of the movement. Note that most of the weight on the helmet is on the top of the head. You neck muscles need to stop what is a circular movement of your head, anchored somewhere near the top of your neck. The top of your head will move at a much higher speed than the lower part, and the part of the helmet on top of your head faster again. Since momentum is proportional to mass x velocity, the helmet contributes significantly more to the forces that your neck muscles must counteract than you'd think by just looking at the weight.

But that's just part of the problem. You also have to take leverage into account - the helmet parts on top of your head are further away from the muscles that stop the movement than most of the mass of your head. Higher velocity multiplied by higher leverage, and the contribution of weight added to the top of your head is substantially larger than you'd guess from just looking at the weight.

Helmets are great for protecting you head when you hit something, or get hit by something - the board, the mast, a rock, another sailor. When you learn a loop, that is usually not the problem. If you try looping following the bad advice ("just jump and sheet in"), the typical injuries are bruised or broken ribs when you land on the board with your upper body. If you try looping following the better advice based on Remko's 4-step video or ABK instruction, chances of hitting your gear are extremely reduced (I have not had or seen it happen in hundreds of tries). But a very common thing when learning to loop is that you'll be thrown on your back into the water quite violently. That's when a helmet won't do any good, but instead can make things worse, even if it fits well.
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rigitrite



Joined: 19 Sep 2007
Posts: 520
Location: Kansas City

PostPosted: Sat Aug 02, 2014 10:53 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Your logic is still faulty. The difference in forces on your neck are probably similar with or without a helmet, but you'd have to provide some numbers before any analysis would be useful.
What you are completely overlooking is that what hurts your neck is the sudden stop when your head hits the water, and it's the same water whether you're wearing a helmet or not. I seriously doubt that your head is traveling "significantly faster" as you claim when you're wearing a helmet, nor that the helmet makes an increase in momentum that really matters. Maybe you just need a stronger neck.

Either way, your advice is anecdotal, and discouraging someone from wearing a helmet if they think it'll help keep em safer and boost confidence is counter-productive.

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isobars



Joined: 12 Dec 1999
Posts: 20935

PostPosted: Sat Aug 02, 2014 4:36 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

steve74 wrote:
I'm more likely to get injured in my car

I'm not. I've never been injured in a car but have been injured many times WSing AND my armor has prevented many MORE injuries.
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isobars



Joined: 12 Dec 1999
Posts: 20935

PostPosted: Sat Aug 02, 2014 4:53 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Whiplash occurs in our neck flexors, which pull our head forward to resist the splash. Where I get sore from getting catapulted (which is almost every reach when pushing the envelope on my strapless windSUP) onto my back is in my extensors ... the back of my neck.

Besides, which is worse ... a sore neck, or a broken nose, teeth, jaw, eye socket, shot to the temple, cataracts, skin cancer, etc.?

I can prevent the sore neck by greatly reducing the impact by flexing at the waist to land on my butt rather than flat on my back. Only a helmet significantly deters and very often negates the rest of those threats.
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bred2shred



Joined: 02 May 2000
Posts: 989
Location: Jersey Shore

PostPosted: Sat Aug 02, 2014 6:11 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

It would be awesome if the people responding to this thread prefaced their post by stating whether or not they can ACTUALLY loop. I wouldn't be surprised if more than half the people who have posted have never even attemped a forward but I'm sure they know as much about looping as those of us who have just by watching youtube vids Rolling Eyes .

My opinion, when I'm whipping myself and my gear around in flight, I feel a lot more secure with some head protection. You WILL smack the side of your head into the water learning this move.

sm


Last edited by bred2shred on Sun Aug 03, 2014 5:56 am; edited 1 time in total
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