Decelerate your life1/17/2024 ![]() Try to avoid landing on bones and cartilage, which can crack and take a lot of time to heal. “This means not just avoiding pointy protrusions such as elbows or kneecaps but also splitting the difference over as much of your thighs, torso, and forearms as you can.” The goal here is to land on your natural padding to spread out the impact of the landing. “Sometimes you don’t have enough time, height, or control to set up a roll, so it’s better to just dissipate the impact over as much surface area as possible,” Inouye says. Practice often on a padded surface to avoid spiked shoulders. ![]() Of course, don’t wait until your next tumble to attempt a roll. The same goes if you’re falling backward, in which case you should tuck your head toward your stomach to avoid hitting it as much as possible. “We don’t want to hit tailbones, heads, or the spine, so going a bit to one side or the other-on the muscles where a back massage feels good-can be much better than a centered roll.” “It’s not the same as gymnastics somersaults, where symmetry is the goal,” Inouye says. You want all your effort to go into protecting the more injury-prone parts of your body. ![]() These rolls aren’t for show, so don’t worry about looks or performance ability. Rolling turns the downward energy of a fall into rotational energy, which allows for a smoother landing. Parkour practitioners become great at this, using rolls to help absorb the impact of jumping from heights,” Inouye explains. “This can mean something like a shoulder roll if you know how to do one of those, or a paratrooper-style fall, where you roll up your side and back as you land. This can be done by spreading the impact over more surface area (more on that later) or falling into a roll. Overall, you want to be adding one bit of yourself to the ground at a time. No distance over which to slow yourself means no time to spread that out-and you slam hard.” Roll to absorb impact. Use it to slow yourself down and steer as you fall. But don’t try to stop yourself with that limb. ![]() If you catch yourself on your hands, knees, or elbows, you miss that extra couple feet of deceleration time,” he continues. “Stopping yourself robs you of some of that time. Plus, it actually allows your body more time to slow down. This is safer than reaching out your hand to stop a fall. Lengthening your fall will lessen the impact. We want the stop to be as gradual as possible. When you think about it, what hurts is not the fall, it’s the sudden stop. Rather than trying to stop yourself from falling, it’s more important to focus on decelerating your fall. “But once the fall is really happening, it’s best to change tactics. “If you can catch yourself early in the fall by grabbing a railing or something, by all means, do that,” Inouye explains. If you didn’t think reducing the speed of a fall was possible, think again. Doing so can bring too much sudden force to your hand and wrist, potentially causing a sprain or break. In this case, avoid landing on your palm. It happens quickly, and we react on impulse,” Inouye adds. Without practice, we’re unlikely to plan our falls. (Spoiler: They likely won’t.) “It’s not something that’s too deliberate. This can especially be true if you’re working out, even if you think your muscles will remain relaxed and in control. We instinctively reach out or tense up,” he tells us. “I think the main problem I run into is people who are trying to catch themselves to prevent or stop a fall. According to Inouye, this can actually do more harm than good. If you’re like most people, your first instinct when you begin to fall is to throw out your arms and catch yourself. If you’re looking to make fitness part of your life, check out Aaptiv, an on-demand audio fitness app with thousands of workouts that you can take anywhere. Read on for his tips about how to fall correctly. To cover all the bases, we spoke with Kevin Inouye, stuntman and assistant professor of movement, acting, and stage combat at Case Western Reserve University. According to physical therapists, stuntpeople, and karate professionals, there are correct ways to save a fall-and they can prevent disaster. Because of the possibility of serious injury, it’s paramount-especially if you’re into fitness-to learn how to fall properly. But sometimes, hitting the ground can leave us bruised, scratched up, or worse. Most of the time, we can shake off a fall. It isn’t uncommon but falls come with various degrees of injury. While these missteps often come off as funny, falling is no joke. Rare is the person who hasn’t tripped during a run, stumbled over something at the gym, or taken a full-on tumble.
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