Looking to avoid an icy fall? Channel your inner kid or walk like a penguin
If you are trying to stay upright on glare ice this frigid winter, channel your inner child.
That's the advice of an Edmonton expert in the human gait.
"When you were a kid you landed on your feet like a cat," said Brea Johnson, who is a certified yoga instructor, and calls herself a "movement educator."
"When you were older, you learned to roll when you fell, but sedentary life means you lose that."
During Alberta's frigid winters, the sidewalks can be a slippery disaster, and everyone is at risk of taking a tumble.
The province has seen an average of 42.3 hospitalizations per 100,000 people between 2011 and 2016, based on statistics compiled by the Canadian Institute for Health Information.
That's the second highest rate in the country, just behind Saskatchewan.
Unusually frigid weather has led to a recent spike in slips and falls in city streets and sidewalks. After a night of freezing rain on Feb. 14, a total of 89 people were injured in Edmonton in a single afternoon.
Many injuries EMS deals with are people who stretched out their arms to break a fall.
Knowing where your body is in space, and being fearless about your strength, is the key to preventing a fall from turning more serious, said Johnson.
A fear of falling will make things worse. Adults will generally flail and tense up during a fall, increasing their risk of injury, she said.
Instead, pedestrians caught in a fall should yield to gravity, and do their best to cushion their fall with their posteriors.
"As kids, it's instinctual. We learn through play," Johnson said in an interview with CBC Radio's Edmonton AM. "The nervous system wires through play, and then as we get older, we don't play anymore.
"And it's through play that we can go and push that edge of our boundaries."
Johnson encourages people who are concerned about fall-related injuries to work on developing their core strength and balance, year-round.
Without daily exercise and stretching, sitting in a cubicle or curling up on the couch for hours on end will leave you vulnerable to injury, she said.
"It's kind of ironic," Johnson said. "I teach mostly adults how to move again.
"As adults, we tend to get a little bit more fearful and want to protect ourselves. But as kids, we just play and that's how we get capable and confident."
If channeling your inner child is out of the question, health officials had an interesting piece of advice — walk like a penguin.
In a recent interview with CBC News, Alex Campbell, EMS public education officer, suggested that pedestrians on icy sidewalks should take short shuffling steps and keep their hands out of their pockets.
Waddle on, you winter walkers.
