Are we all jacking up our necks???

[Mossy 757]

If your neck hurts because of crashes, learning to foil will NOT solve that problem. You almost have to learn how to "safe fall" when you learn to foil because the crashes can be so violent.

[Bille]

...

I would say that at least half the general kiteboarding population are less than fit, and do the sport in a way that imparts a lot of strain. (twin tip, overpowered, looking for little more than big airs)
...

Most of em up off the couch from winter and into 10 days straight, 5 hours a day followed by total dehydration by way of beer.

...

I drink Beer ; when the day is, "Done", and it's time to reminisce, with my friends, about
all the good and bad stuff that happened for the day.

He said : "LESS THAN FIT " ? Well even with the fit ones , i hardly Ever see any kite-boarder
do a stretching exercise to loosen-up and warm-up their body first ; sure wish I could get
away with that !!

Once again --Starsky-- ; you summed it all up, quite nicely Man !!

Bille

[palmbeacher]

If your neck hurts because of crashes, learning to foil will NOT solve that problem. You almost have to learn how to "safe fall" when you learn to foil because the crashes can be so violent.

Depends on what kind of foil you ride. With my MHL 150 I can go so slow that crashing is no issue.

[TomW]

Well if I can figure out foiling and not pound myself, I'll be foiling till I can't. I'm 57 and gave 5 more years as a mid range plan, hoping for 10 more years longer range. We'll see after that.
Snowboarding and skateboarding in the bowls us tougher. Still do those things too.

[Hugh2]

I know someone who loves foiling because his knees took too much of a pounding on his TT doing tricks, but I don't know anyone who has "jacked" his neck. As Toby asks, what exactly do you mean by that?

Hatteras in two weeks, tons of high jumps, lots of waves to ride, learning to foil, and a little beer at the end, maybe. No injuries so far in a decade, including learning on C-kites, and I'm 61.

[Peert]

Never heard a Dutch kitesurfers complain about neck injuries. Perhaps because the Dutchies (in general) do not wear helmets when kitesurfing?
(Except for hydrofoil)

[dt73775]

I forgot to mention all the neck injuries from looking at the babes in bikinis...but I think that goes in to the MOST SEXY KITE PICTURE topic...Hey, i haven't seen that in a while...

[edt]

anything done to excess is a problem! try to limit your kiting to 8 hours a day I remember during the race across america, that's this extreme, I mean not fun, young guys on a pepsi commercial extreme, I mean no sleep for 9 days and 9 night, on your bicycle non stop, getting sores where you didn't think sores could exist. Around day 3 or 4 a lot of bicyclers could not longer lift up their necks to look ahead of them on the road. the neck muscle just failed. It's actually common enough in bicycling that they have a name for it "Shermer's Neck". It can be quite painful. So yeah I don't think kiters get neck injuries more than other sports, but if you have a problem like that try to cut down your sessions by an hour or two for two or three weeks until your neck feels better.

[Rakky]

How do you attach or embed Quicktime? I have a short video on neck injuries

[OzBungy]

After 18 years of kiteboarding my injury toll is virtually nill. A couple of instance of whiplash after seriously messing up huge jumps, and a couple of sore ribs after getting hit by a pitching lip.

With coming up to 2 years of foiling, I was getting whiplash injuries almost every other session. I am currently getting treatment from a physio.

The thing about the foil is that face plants at speed are common. Even worse, there's an extra metre of rotational radius on those face plants so the effect is multiplied.

Wearing a helmet also increased the trauma of the face plant. Adding 500 grams to the mass, and the bucket effect really hammered my neck.

The incidence of face plants has dropped to almost zero. I have got much better at foiling, and I stopped wearing a helmet. Helmets suck for kiteboarding in general and foiling in particular.

PS I recently turned 60. I kite every day that it is kitable (which is almost every day with a foil). The more I kite the fitter I get. I think not kiting would make me sick. Barring getting properly ill, I can see me slowing down in 10-15 years.