Recently there have been stories in the news about martial arts fall training to prevent fractures and we'd like to hear what you think about this.  Does this sound like something that is feasible?  Let us know.

A study of healthy volunteers suggests that teaching elderly patients how to fall may help them avoid bone fractures.

For obvious reasons the study used healthy individuals trained in martial arts to study the impact of the fall and how much force was involved which was measured with a device called a force platform...similar to a weighing machine.  A thick mattress was positioned in front of the participants, so they weren't falling onto a hard surface. 

This new theory sounds promising for those with bone loss if the training employs safety features, like padding of the hips.  They also compared falls from a kneeling and standing position.  The falls from a standing position did not meet the necessary safety precautions but falls from a kneeling position did.  Scientist from BMC research, claim if you turn a fall into a rolling tumble with your spine and neck bent and twisted forward you could land on a thick mattress without injury.  The theory is if you can learn how to do this, then you would be able to incorporate what you've learned into an actual fall on a hard surface, using the technique.

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