Why older skiers can’t get back up? (Part one)

After the age of 70, skiers increasingly find it quite difficult to get back up after a fall, especially on flat terrain. This is so bad that ski helicopter operators discourage, or simply disallow older skiers from boarding their aircraft. 

Besides a drastic reduction in overall loss of muscle mass, we’ll see today what’s really behind that disability. Obviously, the answer turns out to be more complex than “less muscle.” Muscle loss matters, but it’s only one piece of a larger age‑related shift in how the body moves, stabilizes itself, and generates coordinated force. 

Research on older adults and fall recovery points to several interacting factors that make getting up from the ground, especially with ski boots on, on snow, and with skis attached, disproportionately difficult after about age 70. Standing up from the ground requires a sequence of movements that many of us simply stop practicing as we grow older. 

Physical therapists will tell us that rising from the ground demands hip mobility, core engagement, shoulder stability, and rotational control, all of which decline with age even in active adults. Ski boots and skis amplify this problem: they restrict ankle flexion, limit leverage, and make it impossible to plant the feet under the body the way younger skiers instinctively do. 

So what we’re up against in that case is a combination of reduced mobility, weaker balance, reduced neuromuscular response, less self-confidence and a ski gear that literally stands in the way. Muscle loss is only one contributor, so tomorrow we’ll try to get the whole picture!