With all the talk in Atlantic Canada going around of Mark Richard compressing a disc in his back I though I’d take the opportunity to take a closer look at what you should do if you know your about to land flat off of a drop. Keep in mind that these techniques aren’t guaranteed to prevent injury back but simply reduce the chances. Landing flat off of any drop above 10 feet into green water can break your back. Ideally you can identify how aerated your landing point is when scouting and decide if you want to boof or not but if things don’t go as planed here are a few things to think about.

Landing forward on the boof at Grandfather Clock (photo Zac Crouse)

You’ve come off the lip of a drop and instantly know that you’re going to land flat. At this point there are a couple of things you can do to save your back. The easiest thing you can do is tuck up as much as possible onto your front deck and brace for impact. This does a few things, if curves your spine so all of your discs don’t come down on top of one another during impact, it allows your body to absorb some of the shock by enabling you to bend at the waist towards your deck, and it gives you a stable platform to land on.

Getting forward after a big stomp on Mill Creek (Photo Bryan Kirk)

Your other option, the more difficult but safer of the two, is to stomp the drop. Stomping a drop means changing your angle in mid air by kicking your heels down and leaning back to lower your bow down to the water. To do this you really need to separate your upper and lower body movements to kick you legs and heels down effectively dropping your bow. Think of your body as a Swiss Army knife, your going from a closed position to an open position, closed being tucked up to your front deck pulling your knees to your chest and open being leaning back pushing your knees away from you. Once your bow is down it’s important to get your weight forward again before you land so you don’t slam your back off of the stern of your boat when you hit the water. The stomp technique usually works better on larger drops because it takes longer to lower your bow to the water. Practice stomping small drops that don’t matter how you land before you consider using the stomp as a recovery. Although this is definitely a guaranteed way to land softer simply tucking to your front deck will go a long way and is straight forward and fast. I’ve even heard of people going as far as to throw away their paddle and grab the bottom of their boat because they knew they were about to take a big hit.

Getting forward after finding the ideal 45 degree angle (Photo Zac Crouse)

No matter what happens the one thing that you absolutely do not want to do is to land sitting upright. Landing sitting upright will send all of the impact straight up your spine and allow your disks to compress straight down onto one another.

Kelsey Thompson