Hip Pain

[7stg]

I keep getting a pain in my forward hip joint. When I am riding I have noticed a tendency toward favoring the front foot. Also, I notice that although my knees are bent I am not utilizing my quads for shock absorption and the shock is being transmitted into the hip joint causing what feels like a bruising of the joint.

This is my second year snowboarding and can ride any intermediate run with controlled turns at a decent speed and an am working on expert runs. Last year I was running a duck stance of +15/-15 and my width was at 20.5” and did not experience any issues with hip pain. This year I have gone to a forward stance starting at a width of 20.5 and +30/+6. With this setting it seemed that my rear leg was hardly engaged and the rear half of my body did not get nearly as fatigued as my front half. I spent about a half day making adjustments and tried 20 and 19.5 for widths. With the width at 19.5 my front foot was .5 back from center and my back foot was forward .5 this did not feel right and was promptly changed moving the front foot back to center for 20”. There is a 2 inch set back built in to the board. I also played with the angles and ended up increasing the rear angle to +18 and increasing the forward lean on the highback. With these settings I have noticed an improvement in front foot bias, engagement of my rear leg, and reduced hip pain, but the pain is still there and I am still working at getting to get my quads to adsorb the shock instead of transmitting it to the hip joint, and I suspect an angle adjustment may make further improvements.

I have looked at the carvers almanac and www.cs.uu.nl/~daan/snow/stance.html

and they offer the following advice

<u1:p></u1:p>

Use your shoulder width - 20

Use the distance from the floor to the middle of your kneecap - 20.5

Take your pants inseam and multiply by (Phi × 3 / 8) = 0.607, which is taken from Da Vinci's Vitruvian Man. – 20.3345

I am 6’1”

My current 20” feels right and according to the measurements above 20-20.5 should be right

Stance Angles

My angles were +30/+6 now +30/+18 this is better than prior but not perfect. I have noticed that the spread between front and rear angles seems to get smaller as larger angles are used.

“You might be able to achieve a more comfortable stance if the front foot has an angle 3-5º higher than the back foot. Some people ride with a difference of as much as 15º between front and back(carvers almanac)”

My thoughts are to try 2 things increased angle of the rear foot and trying a 19.5”width again by placing the rear foot to the forward most position

As a side note, I am noticing a deformation of my Nidecker carbon 900 highbacks with the higher angle pressure is transmitted towards one side of the highback and they are permanently twisted with increased deformation towards the top of the highback. They are still functional however.

[Dr D]

15 degrees + difference is a lot! I would say that most people favor 3-5 for comfort.

From a chiropractor's viewpoint : If you have any functional problems in your pelvis it will change how you distribute weight and absorb shock creating painful areas where the distribution is uneven. SI joint fixation can cause among other things Low back pain in the L4-L5 area and hip and knee pain. your rather exagerated angles would only aggravate this problem I am guessing. Since falling on you -ss is one of the major causes of such misalignments and fixations it stands to reason that as a snowboarder you may have this problem. I would recomend a stance change and a check up at a good chiro. If you tell me where you are at I will happily find a good one to refer you to:biggthump

[Dr D]

Washington is a good place to find a good one and I may even know them personally depending on where you are from.

[7stg]

I have been mountain biking, riding bmx, and inline skating my whole life without any problems so I do not think that I have any inherent problem with my hip. I will try a lesser difference in angles and see if that helps.

[Dr D]

we are talking about small misalignments here not major problems. your active lifestyle makes you an even more likely candidate. I would suggest a car analogy. If you have a car in need of a front end alignment and it is sitting in the yard and never driven its not really a problem per say. however if you drive the same car to california you will be missing some rubber when you get there. the more you use a misaligned joint the more potential wear you have. A quick trip to the chiro would also incidentaly find anything major as well and provide you with cheap diagnosis and refferal to the appropriate specialist. If it is a simple misalignment problem treatment is easy and affordable. better to be proactive than reactive:biggthump

[Mike T]

I has hip issues for years without being aware of it, and then even when I realized that I had no idea that my right femur is quite a bit shorter than my left one

Both things affect snowboarding more than any other activity. When my hip gets cranky I am pretty much incapable of making a good heelside.

[Dr D]

A true short leg? Did you break it on the growth plate or something similiar? Lots of people have a short leg that is caused by the rotation and twisting of the pelvis if one side is locked or stuck in a forward position it pulls the hip socket forward and up effectively shortening the leg. This is easily fixed on the other hand if you have a true short leg where the femur is shorter that is something that is harder to deal with. IF its new a heel lift is appropriate if its been that way for years a heel lift will often aggravate it since the spine has already adapted to it. Fallen arches could also give a false short leg. Custom soft arthotics are the way to go there.

[Mike T]

A true short leg? Did you break it on the growth plate or something similiar? Lots of people have a short leg that is caused by the rotation and twisting of the pelvis if one side is locked or stuck in a forward position it pulls the hip socket forward and up effectively shortening the leg. This is easily fixed on the other hand if you have a true short leg where the femur is shorter that is something that is harder to deal with. IF its new a heel lift is appropriate if its been that way for years a heel lift will often aggravate it since the spine has already adapted to it. Fallen arches could also give a false short leg. Custom soft arthotics are the way to go there.

It's a true short leg. Difference in femur length is over 1cm. Of course, in the course of compensating for my short leg, my pelvis and hip socket are constantly being pulled out of proper alignment. My chiro has been helpful in at least keeping it mobile. I wear orthotics and there is some lift on the short leg but not the full amount, for the reasons you cite.

[Dr D]

It's a true short leg. Difference in femur length is over 1cm. Of course, in the course of compensating for my short leg, my pelvis and hip socket are constantly being pulled out of proper alignment. My chiro has been helpful in at least keeping it mobile. I wear orthotics and there is some lift on the short leg but not the full amount, for the reasons you cite.

sounds like you got it under control:biggthump