Re:[Paddlewise] tennis elbow

At 08:01 PM 4/6/2004 -0700, Matt Broze wrote:
>Gordin wrote:
><Snip>>>>>>Now my legs are burning, my lungs have collapsed and I'm not even
>a third
>of the way down when I planted my right pole directly onto a rock.  I felt
>the shock right through to the bones in my elbow.<<<<<snip>
>
>Thirty some years ago my solution to those hard pole plants was shock
>absorbers in my ski poles. I was skiing (Freestyle) for Hart skis and Allsop
>bindings at the time.

I used to have a pair of Hart Freestyle skies.  There have only been two 
times while skiing that I have fallen and hurt myself enough that I had to 
stop skiing for the day (I've been skiing for 33 years).  One of those 
times was on those old Hart skis.  I was having a really good day and was 
skiing some large moguls on Red Dog at Squaw Valley.  I was really letting 
it hang out and got too far back on my skis.  My flight through the air 
with both skies tips pointing skyward was abruptly terminated when my pole 
planted on a bump and the end of the pole jammed me in the ribs.

>   They must have thought the shock absorber poles
>were a good idea though because they came out with just such a thing by the
>next season. I got a couple of pair from the new rep and I just loved them.
>No more wrist and elbow pain on those hard pole plants in icy moguls.

I've got a pair of light shaft shock absorber poles in the basement.  I 
also discovered shock absorber poles early on and never used anything 
else.  My other injury was also pole related.  It was on the 4th day in a 
row of skiing with a regular skiing buddy that was a former instructor, his 
brother, and his brothers girlfriend (who used to patrol at Whistler).  We 
were skiing "Olympic" at Kirkwood (California) which at one time used to be 
rated the 4th longest/steepest run in North America.  It was bumpy and icy 
that day.  I was following my buddies brother down when he crashed in front 
of me.  I made a quick turn to avoid skiing over the top of him and came 
out of my binding.  When I attempted to step back into it I discovered a 
portion of the heel piece had broken clean off.  I gave my ski to my buddy 
and attempted to ski the rest of the run on one ski (I'd done that before 
after breaking a binding at the top of a two mile run at Vail).  I picked 
my way down slowly without incident until I got to the flats.  Then I 
crashed and jammed a pole in the snow and bent my thumb back.  It was so 
painful I couldn't old a pole and continuing the day with one ski and one 
pole didn't seem like a good idea.  Even worse was that I had a hard time 
holding a beer down at mahogany ridge.


>BTW I bought my first pair of shaped skis at a garage sale for $25 last
>year.

Still haven't done that.  I'm still skiing on my old 203cm Rossignol 3G 
Kevlar GS skis.


>  Of course, I've been thinking what would even shorter and
>smaller radius skis do to maybe make even quicker carved turns.

When I started skiing on longer skis (going from a 190cm to 207cm) I did so 
because I was getting tired of making quick carved turns and wanted a ski 
that I could do more cruising on.  I wanted something that was more solid 
when making wider radius carved turns and the one time I tried a pair of 
those shaped skis (at Chamonix last year) I didn't feel like they did that 
well.
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