Poll: Did you ever have a paddling-related shoulder injury?

The shoulder injury poll is diffinatley inacurate. People who have injured their shoulder and especially those who have had surgery are likeley to answer the poll. It will not reveal information of any relevance. Statistically the test is completley flawed and may mislead many people to false conclutions.

Peace,
Boe

OK but if you accept that the poll is throwing up only ballpark and probably biased results (effectively those of us who have undergone surgery are more likely to respond), they are not totally without interest.

I have the 'impression' that there are a lot less kayaking shoulder accidents today compared to 30 years ago - shorter paddles and boats, smaller blade area reduce the leverage effect. In the early days at Augsburg (late 70s) the number of shoulder dislocations was incredible but, in those days, 206 cm blades were considered 'short'. Back then surgery often meant retirement from kayaking.

It would be interesting to study the incidence of shoulder dislocation relative to paddle length and blade area. However, how to get accurate data is something medical statisticians could argue about till eternity.

Interestingly, my shoulder injury came about during a pool session while performing T-rescues. The key to reducing any injury is good coaching and instructing leading to good technique. Also, being an old timer (56) the risk of injury increases considerably.
I honestly believe that people taking up the sport for the first time have the impression that fitness isn't that important; just sit in a boat and paddle, nothing to it, which brings me back to the coaching point. Luckily my injury hasn't stopped me paddling, but it could have been a lot worse.

Even if the results are not perfectly accurate it's still A LOT of shoulder injuries. You could cut the injury number in half and it would still, in my mind, be a high percentage of injury.

You're talking mumbo jumbo there, very subjective terms, which is the opposite of good statistical data.

OK then, tell us all how an analysis should be done properly, oh wise one.

PS: if statistics is such an exact science then how come the world's top statisticians cannot agree on how many civilian casualties there have been in Iraq? Give me crude data any day - at least you know its limitations.

I think one should clarify the term shoulder related injury. What's included/ excluded. What's to be understood as shoulder etc.. Poor questions lead too poor statistics. The better one would be what kind of paddling-related shoulder injury?

Get the raw material as clear as possible and the rest will follow...

Iraqi casualties and statistics whats that got to do with it? Please....

Whatever Kraft... how's your barrel floating going.

You are making the point I'm making which is you must be much more specific for good data and still then it is open for debate... I'm not a statistitian how should I know. But you don't have to be one to see with some common sense that this poll is useless.

Whitewaterules wrote:

I'm not a statistitian how should I know

Statistically the test is completley flawed

Croft wrote:

Whitewaterules wrote:

I'm not a statistitian how should I know

Statistically the test is completley flawed

like I said, \"Whatever Kraft... how's your barrel floating going.

You are making the point I'm making which is you must be much more specific for good data and still then it is open for debate... I'm not a statistitian how should I know. But you don't have to be one to see with some common sense that this poll is useless.\"

I have had a shoulder incident on the Ocoee River once. I banged up both my shoulders and my back. It wasn't very serious, but It still needed some ointment and a bandage. What happened was I flipped on Broken Nose (A really shallow class 4 rapid on the Ocoee River), and before I could roll back up, I started hitting rocks. Finally after about 15 seconds I rolled back up and my head was covered in blood. I had a deep cut on the edge of my right eyebrow plus I got banged on my shoulders and back. Now it's just a scar. \"Scars are just Tattoos with better stories!\".

I said i ahdn't had an injury because i haven't. I just wish there was an option saying \"No, Not yet im clearly not doing something right\"

Whitewaterules wrote:

Whatever Kraft... how's your barrel floating going.

You are making the point I'm making which is you must be much more specific for good data and still then it is open for debate... I'm not a statistitian how should I know. But you don't have to be one to see with some common sense that this poll is useless.

I could probably prove that any particular poll is useless. People who answer polls are probably not representative for the world's population. People who do polls on the internet are not representative for all people that might answer a poll. People who read Playak are not representative for all internet paddlers....

and thten there is indeed always the issue of what exactly you're asking in the poll. you're right, there may be better ways to poll this particular shoulder issue, but i'm not a statistician either...

on the other hand, keeping in mind such poll limitations, i could also prove that any particular poll is useful.....

My shoulder often 'catches' itself and has to pop back out again (if that made sense) after kayaking. This is pretty uncomfortable and'll probably cause problems later, but I found I can avoid this if I stretch properly before getting on the water; much to the amusement of my peers.

generally speaking it is not good to streth the shoulder complex. It is already unstable enough as a joint. Further more there is no scientific data to suggest that stretching is good. It has been done for years. It is good for range of motion but not good just before exercise. If fact I have read some studies that showed that stretching is acctually more likeley to perhaps lead to muscular strains. The trend now is to stretch less unless it is for improved range of motion for functional reasons. You should really go see a doctor you could have a torn labrum or some kind of supriapinatus tendonitis or bone spur. The point is, don't let scar tissue build up in there and nip it in the but while you can.

Peace,
Whitewaterules

Thats a worse case scenario I hope I think it's just a bad joint - I don't have the best diet in the world, and that seems to affect everything - but if it persists or next time I'm in a walk-in centre (which is oddly quite a lot), I'll get it checked out, thanks.

That about stretching maybe even being bad for you was interesting. I'll look up on that.

I was exercising and also stretching my shoulder to recover from an injury I recently had. The stretching did seem to make it worse so now I'm doing nothing and it is healing nicely. I paddled about 32km on an overnight trip last weekend and it wasn't too bad at all now. Just lots of rest really, and not sleeping on that side helped and still helps a lot too.

\"stretching\" is so vague that it's hard to argue if it's good or bad. Certainly trying to stretch too much is bad; partly because you run the risk of tearing something and also you body has a tendency to rebound from overstreatching and actually make you tighter. I take my example from animals. Every see a dog stretch beyond it's comfort level? They are probably not worried about how flexible they are compared with other dogs. But, they do give a few good stretches when they wake up.
I found that I feel much better doing a light warm up before anything intense. Best to just get the blood flowing a bit and warm up the muscles.

I had a bone spur, further crowded by a cyst that had to be taken care of almost two years ago now. The doc said that these things grow slowly until they reach the point of really being in the way. An Xray didn't show any of this initially and I had another doctor who was just prescibing rest and some pain killers. I found another doctor who was more interested in sports and an active lifestyle so he kept an eye on me for a short while, then ordered an MRI when I kept having pain. It showed the problem and I had surgery. Surgery is not the only answer, but in my case it was the best. As long as you feel like you are dealing with a doc that understands what you want to do for activities then listen to him/her. (and don't be afraid to be a pest so you get what you need)

Good luck and I hope your shoulder is better.

Stretching is good if it's targeted right and helps to maintain or achieve balance between the muscle groups. When it comes to the shoulder complex I think it's essential for most people to stretch lats and pecs as their are powerful and dominant internal rotators of the shoulder joint. At the same you should strenghten the external rotators as these are relatively small and weak rotator cuff tendons like supraspinatus. The key is not to achieve the maximum range of motion rather than stabilize the joint for as much of the range on motion as possible. Still the reality is that shoulder joint is hardly fully stable for the full range of motion and it's up the the paddling technique to keep the shoulders safe and in stable range of motion as much as possible. The people I see having most problems with shoulders have a huge range of motion, the joint is unstable for large part of the range of motion and they have a poor paddling technique in case of keeping the shoulder in safe position.

I agree with you. After my surgery, we worked the larger muscle groups first, and kind of worked backwards towards the shoulder; first making sure that my back was stretched, and then concentrating mostly on the pecs and upper back. Good perspective. Thanks.