How effective are wrist guards in the prevention of wrist fractures during snowboarding?
“There is now convincing evidence from both laboratory studies and (more importantly) direct comparisons between groups of boarders with and without guards to show that wearing the right kind of wrist guard does significantly reduce the risk of wrist injury. This has been reported from studies in America, Norway, France and New Zealand. “The main problem is that (unlike helmets) there is no accepted international standard for snowboard wrist guards at present. Recent research has indicated that for snowboarding the ideal guard should be flexible, longer rather than shorter and should not be only on the palm side of the wrist. As I mentioned above, the most popular guard type at the moment are those designed for inline skating – whilst arguably better than no guard, personally I recommend a specific snowboard guard system. There are two on the market both designed by doctors who treat snow sports injuries. These are the Flexmeter and Biomex systems.” Some research evidence (Hagel et al
