Attempted my first 3 backflips - fucked myself up pretty good

johnnyBuz

johnnyBuz

Active member
So I was getting tired of pushing off attempting a backflip. Entering my 2nd season with probably 5-7 total days in the park, the jumps kept tempting me to try a backie.

Finally sacked up tonight off a sketchy 3 foot kicker over a decent knuckle into a moderate downslope (but completely iced over landing). First attempt was my best I more or less landed it. Second attempt I didn't get enough rotation and landed on my nose tips which sent my knees directly into the ice and really hurt myself.

Stupidly tried a 3rd time but at the last minute I realized I couldn't bend my knees anymore and I hit my helmet on the lip and just ate shit.

I think I lost my confidence now but I am somewhat worried about my knee. Any bro science majors here? I don't feel any instability in my knee but it hurts like a deep muscle/bone bruise. I can't bend down parallel to the ground. Anyone ever do anything similar? Definitely gonna start wearing knee pads now if this is what happens when I under rotate.

I may wait to try this again on an Air Bag. I thought I had it figured out but the potential injury makes me not want to huck it again until I practice it on a safer jump first.
 
Don't fuck around with knees, see a doc. Just wait for a softer day and try again man, if you put it to your feet you should stomp it super easily
 
wait a day and see what your knees feel like and see if they are swelling and there is instability. Pretty much all major knee problems swell like a bitch so if there isn't any swelling you probably just bruised them. -From a biomed student whos had 3 knee surgeries
 
i actually did almost the same thing today and i was going to make a thread about it. i tried my first backy on a park jump and now i think my legs broken. wish me luck at the doctor tmw
 
Good luck man. I was trying to read some of the other posts on backflips and under rotating.

So the jump was kind of small, I hit my head on the lip once and nearly did it the 2nd time which is the time I hurt my knee.

Do I need to pop and then thrust hips forward and go for the invert? Or do you start it as you are leaving the jump? I feel like if I am hitting my head its because I am trying to start the flip before fully exiting the lip and popping ... but at the same time if under rotating is my problem that would give me even less time to rotate in the air, no?

Guess I'm even more confused now. Back to the drawing board!
 


/images/flash_video_placeholder.pngthis embed might not work. but heres what happened on my first backflip attempt in a long time
 
You are not alone. I was also throwing my first backies this week but on the jump from Backyard Jib Setup Done Right and lost a little blood on one of the tries where I didn't make it. Oddly enough I also landed my first one and didn't make the next two. I would advise being a man an tryin again but on a bigger jump (I wish I had one). Good luck with dat knee
 
I feel ya bro.. Tried to huck one in November off a nice little jump on the side of a cat track.. Dumbest thing I ever did.. Under rotated and fuck my shoulder.. Couldn't ski for bout a month.. Only going to try them In park now
 
Thanks guys. I did a little research and I guess I was trying it off a jump I had no real business trying it off of. Didn't provide any lift so to speak and the margin for error seemed low. Didn't help that we never get pow over here and the fucking ice landing just raped my knee.

Gonna wait till an Air Bag and a better jump in the park last time. I know riding one out will feel great and be well worth it but just gotta be a little smarter about it next time.
 
That looked painful.

And johnny, that inspires me to try a backie in the near future haha. Sometimes you just have to do it or you will regret not trying.
 
I find it easier to throw them off a slightly bigger jump then you might think. This helps because you have to force yourself to lay it out. I have found that doing them on smaller jumps leads to an underrotation by trying to lay it out, and then several over rotations afterwards because the fear factor comes into play.

Bigger jumps=more time, more relaxed, more control
 
I discourage people from flipping.

Its the lazy man's way to attention. I spent years working on flips; the more I did them, them scarier they got. The problem is that they are soo easy to send, but hard to land. So noobs go around hurting themselves in parks then sewing the mountain for dangerous features.

Before hucking backflips, you must be able to grab 720 comfortably before considering flipping (unless there is unlimited powder). It shows you understand the forces of skiing and you can master take off techniques.

I can show you how the flip works through physics, but its going to be too long
 
Lol are you serious? I would love to hear your full explaination of flipping physics because there are plenty of kids out there who can flip better than they can spin.
 
God dammit I said backstitch!! What is this shit!?!?! These whipstitches have made the mountain very dangerous!!

And yeah your rule is not for everyone. I'm more comfortable doing backflips, flatspins or lincolns than I am 7's. Hell, I have yet to land a cork 7, but I can dub back and dub flat. Not that I encourage that, the amount of kids hucking dubs and wrecking is scary, but I just like flipping better.
 
Flipping and spinning are based on 2 different movements. Flips rely on foward or backwards "curl". This means the curl momentum can be gained through the angulation of the jump and application of an impulsion movement.

Spinning however is a discontinued rotative force that is not presented by the jump. To spin, a opposite and equal force must be applied to the jump to set a rotation. At the same time of the rotation, the angle of the jump must be counterbalanced to assure correct landing position. All of these factors happen all at the same time; making the spin much more complex and proving you understand the rotation.

Safetywise: Spins are safe than flips. Why? Spins happen on the vertical axis "y". When properly set, but poorly executed spin, the impact to the skull is a torque physics problem. The radius, being your distance from your legs to you head (worst case scenario) times the mass of you head times will give you the impact force. Velocity is added to the impact force. The worst injuries are broken bones and tendons.

Flipping required passing the entire mass of your body. Now say you land on you neck/head: Take your speed, times your mass and add the flipping moment depending on how exactly you are on your head. This force will be 100 times stronger and applied on the weakest part of the body, the neck. You can break someone's neck just by pulling on it hard enough.

Here is a quick over view of the flip. Flipping is about centering your center of rotation to the center of gravity. Since you are moving a long object, we will see it was head side: left and feet side right side

head=feet

if you set you rotation by "slinging" ie: curving your back, you will set the center of rotation higher to your chest/neck. You are now right long. longer means heavier and thus carrying more momentum.

If headfeet. In this imbalance, the rotation was set in the knees (you lifted your knees and not set a flip) Now that you are head heavy, your head will carry momentum and inertia. As your head slides under your back blinding, you will stop your rotation and jam. this is because the force of the momentum of your upper body overcame the rotative force, stopping you in mid air.

I hope you now get my point. Flipping is easy and dangerous, spinning is harder and safer. Since im all about style I love seeing lower risk tricks, but personalized style.
 
You sound old and like an Olympic coach or some shit. 720s straight up are more difficult to land well than a cork 7
 
ballsy for sure.

i walked away from my first attempt with a swollen disc in my lower back. it was truly a rubbish attempt
 
I have yet to throw a backie on snow, but what I learned at ramp camp over the summer is that you actually get more time in the air if you're patient. When you set too early, you don't pop. Not only is you're rotation off (and you hit your head on the lip), but the lack of a solid pop minimizes your amplitude. If you're patient and wait for the lip to pop and set, you get a lot more time in the air to let your flip come around.
 
This actually sounds like pretty sound advice. Bigger jump, better upward facing lip = more hangtime to stomp the trick. Like most things in life (tits, ass, ski jumps), bigger is better. The jump I was going off of I didn't even have enough time in the air to spot the landing I was trying to do it all on "feel" based on what I remembered from doing backies on a trampoline.
 
Okay so I'm a little over 24 hours out since impact and surprisingly, the knee hasn't swelled up at all and there is no bruising yet (odd, cuz other body parts have bruised since yesterday). I'm hoping it is just a deep bone bruise/contusion but I'm gonna give it another few days before I see a doctor to see if it starts healing on it's own. It is obviously still incredibly painful to bend down but other than that there is no static pain. It is tender to the touch above the kneecap and actually causes a burning sensation which I've never really felt before.

That aside, does anyone here wear hockey knee pads? I'm kind of kicking myself for not wearing them now because I'm going on 26 in March and don't bounce right up like I used to, and honestly, maybe I'm a pussy, but I don't see anything wrong with loading up on the pads/armor if you are going to be hucking shit with reckless abandon. I think they will give me some more added confidence to throw things without worrying about terrible consequences.

These are the pads I have. I'm pretty sure if I had these on yesterday I would have just skiied away without even feeling much more than a dull impact. Only question is if they will fit under my ski boots.

603651.png

 
Hockey knee pads are designed to fit so that the bottom of your shin pad is just above your ankle. They're too long to wear with ski boots.

If you feel that you really need padding for your knees get volleyball knee pads or skateboard/roller blade knee pads.
 
First off, get the knee looked at.

Secondly, get confident with backflips on a tramp and they become easy on snow. Backflips are 85% ball 15% skill. Use the lip in your favor. Lean back and tuck knees. Get confident in the tuck and hick then start steezing them out.
 
Yah that was part of the reason I decided to throw it. I already felt pretty comfortable throwing them on tramps so I thought "what the hell?"

Knee is feeling a little better. If nothing is seriously fucked up (MRI pending), I'd imagine I will be back on the slopes in 7-10 days based off how it has improved over the last 48 hours.
 
air bags are ruining the sport. Do it on to snow. You tried it once just do it again when you feel good again.
 
If those don't fir they make knee pads for racers, you could probably fit those under your pants.

They might need modification for what your thinking though, there meant for blocking gates not landing on them. Skateboarding Knee pads could be another option.
 
This is the most bitchmade advice I've seen in a while. Put a helmet on, find a decent sized jump, and give 'er hell.

 
I don't like you at all you sound like a bitch.

My advice which is the same advice I got by the coaches at Camp of Champs on my first try: " Pop, head back, pelvic thrust the sky aka fuck the shit out of the sky, tuck if needed and stomp. And do a backflip or your a pussy."
 
I learned a backflip in my first full season skiing and that was before I could rotate a 360. I was solid on rails and could throw a 1 and thats it. If you have a good lip and balls, they really arent hard. Just DO NOT half commit or bail mid way. Thats how people get really hurt.

The only reason I would discourage learning backflips is that it makes it harder to spin off axis like on corks because its a whole different throw, not just a lean back and tuck knees. Also, inversion is a bigger risk and back flips arent that cool so not much reward.

That being said, its still fun to throw a back flip on a setup jump in a jump line because gapers think you are a lot cooler than you are.
 
i just threw my first backies this weekend.. took me three tries to get it. first one i under rotated and landed on my shoulder, it hurt a little but not too much.. the second one, i hucked pretty hard and brought it to skis, but i over rotated it alitte and i washed out.. the third one i stuck pretty well.. i was on the fence about trying it, but once you get past that first try, its gets way easier and less scary...
 
definitely this. Trampolines do wonders. tried my first backflip 2 seasons ago and was so stiff, basically just hucking them. once you do them on trampoline and get the idea of spotting your landing and snapping your hips around they're so easy.
 
I tried a backflip off like a 5 foot park jump 2 years ago, no idea what happened but i got a pretty good concussion. i told myself i would give it 2 full years before trying any more flips to get over it and have brain heal up or whatever so this year i'm going to find a nice kicky booter in the spring and go for it. +k to the advice givers in this thread and big ups to you OP for nutting up, hope you stomp it next time.
 
Cool brah. I'll be sure to cheer for you in the X-Games this year.

To everyone else, thanks for the advice. Gotta find a better lip and pop more than I did before initiating the flip.
 
I will be trying my first one Saturday so tips would be appreciated by me as well. I can back flip and gainer on the tramp comfortably and i will be doing it into pow (if the forecast holds true). So anything other than just to sack up and throw it?
 
thats really all it is.. the first one i threw, I looked over my left shoulder and fell on my side.. all it is is sacking up and throwing it straight back.. what I was told: Pop, look back, spot landing.. spotting the landing will be hard the first couple times untill you start to figure out where you are in the air.
 
Do you have any experience doing them off smaller jumps? The 3 I attempted were off a smaller jump and I don't remember seeing the ground or "spotting my landing" at all. It all happened really fast I don't know if the jump was too small to have time to see the landing or if the whole aspect of the backflip was too new for me and it hasn't "slowed down" yet which will come with experience.
 
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