How many knees?

NotHisRealName · Post by **NotHisRealName** » 30 Mar 2005 23:38

I was just talking to HackyRichard on MSN and he asked... "I wonder how many knees Whirl has taken out?"

Well, mine makes one.

It would be interesting to see some idea as to how many knees have been injured while attempting Whirl.

Muffinman · Post by **Muffinman** » 31 Mar 2005 00:30

The only thing that has ever hurt my knees in footbag is the fairy set. Maybe double downs a LITTLE bit, but only when I've been airshredding -- never for real. The first day I started skooling fairies both sides, nearing the end of the session, my knee just started to hurt so much I had to grab at it and I think I collapsed to the ground @______@ The weird thing is I've been having knee pain in the other leg, completely unrelated to footbag...
Whirls and atomic are what destroyed my hip flexor, though. I've had this discussion with Kevin Regamey many times -- there are two main styles of whirl; one style is dexing with a leg movement completely below the knee (it's really hard to describe what I mean, but maybe you understand?) -- this is the style I do my whirls in. I feel reserved and I look uncomfortable when I do whirls. The second style involves more of the entire leg and the strain is more on the hip area, than the knee. I'm not sure if that made sense. But maybe if you tried to change your style for whirls it would help? I am going to try to change my fairy style (or figure out why it hurts) when I can play again.
good luck! (and be careful with your body!!!!

sNale · Post by **sNale** » 31 Mar 2005 03:22

I do my whirls like Erik said "dexing with a leg movement completely below the knee". Until recently I never had any troubles with whirls, but once I did a Toe Whirl and really ripped my leg around the bag. After that session my knee hurt moderately. The pain stayed for another two weeks or so. During that time I massage the area around knee-cap with some kind of sporting cream. I'm really glad that my knee doesn't hurt anymore now. I drilled pdx whirls yesterday and my knees are fine. But one shouldn't mess around when your knees hurt already! Daniel a player here from Munich stopped playing Footbag because of his injured knees

BalinorNZ · Post by **BalinorNZ** » 31 Mar 2005 03:37

I dont do whirl/dod or even butterfly anymore, not because of my knees but because I rolled my ankle to many times doing them and I cant stand having a baloon for an ankle and not playing for a week to 2 months waiting for it to heal.

What have hurt my knees though is whirling set

I learned blazing at one point and started using it and at the end of a day of heavy use of the set my knees where in AGONY!

I have also had rather tender knees lately from something unknown, I dont know if its fairy set but I have just picked up the set and started using it so maybe it is.

My friend who is a fairy pro has a very wierd problem with his left knee, when he fairys on that side it makes a series of very audible snaps which sound gut-renchingly horrible! If anyone knows what the problem there might be, please tell me and spare my ears!

brian relly · Post by **brian relly** » 31 Mar 2005 05:45

I voted Yes, but it wasn't really just whirls that claimed it. It was SYMP WHIRLS, and double downs as well. I started doing a lot more of those, and "See ya!"

Chris Holden · Post by **Chris Holden** » 31 Mar 2005 06:31

Whirl has always been the bane of my game. I still try to school it to improve, but all of my biggest injuries come from whirl. One of the worse was my right leg whirl foot kicking my left calf, dead in the center. It was swollen and I couldn't really walk on it for a few days. If I school regularly, I have perma-bruises on that calf, but never on the flipside (which can barely whirl). Both knees always pop, which may be a combination of double-down and whirl.

NotHisRealName · Post by **NotHisRealName** » 04 Apr 2005 03:25

Well, my left knee I think is due to whirl. I used to try to dex the bag with (mostly) the knee - that is, the lower leg moving 'around' the bag.

The more I studied the trick after the fact, the more I realised that it's done more with the upper part of the leg.

Reid · Post by **Reid** » 04 Apr 2005 08:31

I find if you turn away form the bag and do the whirl dex more behind you it doesn't put as much stress on your knee, example with paradox whirl, pivot your support leg with a little hop in the opposite direction as your dexing side, so your ass is more towards the bag.

Also extensive swirls seem to bother the outside of my knee, this seems to be less when i work reverse swirl as well the same day.

Mathochist · Post by **Mathochist** » 04 Apr 2005 20:59

I second the vote that symposium whirl is worse for the knees than whirl. It has been for me at least.

C-Fan · Post by **C-Fan** » 05 Apr 2005 21:11

Tough as this sounds, its sometimes worthwhile to eliminate moves from your game for the sake of your body. Jon Schneider does way less ripsteins and whirling swirls now, I think Pete avoids certain tricks for his body, and I`ve taken out a lot of the symposium from my game all for the sake of my legs. Is it fun for me to hit superfly? Hell yes. Is it worth shortening my footbag career to keep doing them? I didn`t think it was, so I chose to stop doing them.

Some tricks just don`t agree with our bodies. While they may be fun to do, ask yourself if its worth it to keep doing them. You can still have fun playing footbag and not doing whirls. Hell, Eric Wulff had one of the best styles ever, and he hardly ever whirled.

Just a thought.

hacksterbator · Post by **hacksterbator** » 05 Apr 2005 23:54

my knees are busted, but not from doing whirls, it's from falling off shit. whirls don't seem to bother me pain wise, but the motion is still awkward.

ericksonj · Post by **ericksonj** » 06 Apr 2005 08:46

When I was schooling blurry whirls and spinning whirls really hard I developed a really bad soreness in my weak side whirl knee. It wouldn't really hurt until I bent it sideways, but when I did it hurt pretty badly. Some days it was hard for me to do an inside kick with that leg. So I stopped doing whirls for a month and my knee is all better, I didn't even have to take a break from footbag. While I may eventually start throwing whirls again, there are so many other moves that I could get better at and still have good knees for the future. It's pretty hard to fix a torn knee, so in my opinion eliminate anything from your game that hurts you. That may include eliminating an improper technique or simply taking out the move altogether.

Seath · Post by **Seath** » 06 Apr 2005 09:32

Aw man, I never do whirls, I only recently started to mess around with them, I was never a big fan, reading this makes me want to keep em out of my game hehe.

B_Man · Post by **B_Man** » 06 Apr 2005 13:03

When I first learned how to Whirl, it did make my knees sore, but only that. When it began to hurt, I would walk it off and do something else for a while. The only real problems I got from Whirling moves were from Pdx Whirl (a lot from that one) and PS Whirls, where I try to do the dex as quickly/high off the ground as possible. That just led to unnecessary pain.

CIC flurry · Post by **CIC flurry** » 06 Apr 2005 23:02

I've never had a knee problem except the first time I tried Nuclear.

As for whirls: It has happen to me, and I've seen it happen to others:
Your whirling foot hits your planted foot - and you fall sometimes.
PS whirl: 1-3 times my knee just buckled, but I didn't get hurt

Tom
CIC

professor · Post by **professor** » 10 Apr 2005 17:28

I've never had a real problem with whirls hurting my knees. I think the first time I started doing symp. whirls one of my knees hurt for about half a day. Ever since then my knees only get kinda sore after doing lots of whirls.

I think this is because I read of many people's knee problems from doing whirls so I decided to slowly begin whirls and symp. whirls. I took my time doing them. I would only do like 2 symp. whirls on both sides total per session, just to get my knees used to them.

I think this is the way to go.

Dat · Post by **Dat** » 10 Apr 2005 18:18

I disagree that rushing weak knees into basic whirls is the real cause of sore knees. I think people simply are giving their knees unecessary stress by keeping their upper leg still while making a circular motion with their lower leg about their knee. Your knee wasn't meant to move this way and that's why it hurts. If you move your upper leg together with your lower leg your knee receives much less stress.

It shouldn't feel like a circular motion either. It's more of a triangle.
This is how I do whirl:
1. I slowly bring my lower leg outside the path of the bag
2. then slowly pull my heel towards my ass over the bag
3. finally I quickly kick down past the bag once my lower leg is back inside the path of the bag.
and all of this with my upper and lower leg moving together

[Paradox] Symp Whirls are another matter. Those make it hard to land softly and your knee ends up taking some of the impact.

Sporatical_Distractions · Post by **Sporatical_Distractions** » 11 Apr 2005 14:48

i'm gonna be out for a couple of weeks due to knee injury.
edit: what I thought was gonna be a break for a couple of weeks did not last long. I have been taking glucosamine, msm, chondritin, and fish oil and doing knee strenghtening exercises and stretches. Today has felt the best that it has in several months and I got some good shred in as well. I am now making one of these faces -->

Air · Post by **Air** » 19 Apr 2005 04:18

When I started learning Whirls they hurted my knees a bit. Maybe I was doing them with wrong technique or something... Nowadays I don't have any problem with Whirls.

Jeremy · Post by **Jeremy** » 19 Apr 2005 06:15

C-Fan wrote:Tough as this sounds, its sometimes worthwhile to eliminate moves from your game for the sake of your body.

Definitly - I've given up my flip eggbeaters for a while because they were giving me serious knee pains.

Soon I'm going to go back to them and work out how to do them without hurting myself. If a move makes your body hurt - especially if you're an experienced player, I think there is a good chance you need to change your technique to fix it - if you keep doing the move you'll probably do some permenant damage...

How many knees?

Has Whirl claimed your knee?

How many knees?

2nd