If I can’t do any flips on the trampoline, I’m not sure it’s worth it.
Another question is whether there’s any simple neck-brace I can wear to avoid spinal injuries, which are the main thing I’m worried about. I’m okay with a 0.1% chance of pain, it’s life-altering injuries (or more to the point, work-altering injuries) that I want to avoid.
If I can’t do any flips on the trampoline, I’m not sure it’s worth it.
I don’t have any statistics handy, but once you learn flips from an instructor and practice about 1000 times carefully and under supervision over several sessions, it is a safe activity, because of the muscle memory taking over. Unless you make it unsafe by pushing your limits or jumping while impaired. Of course, there are always freak accidents like this, but the odds are at the noise level, such as being rear-ended hard when driving.
I once took a course, 30 hours, we jumped on a professional rectangular trampoline without vertical safety nets, supervised. I too was worried about spinal injuries. According to my teachers, most injuries do happen by jumping out of the bounds or impromper landing technique (taking the landing shock the spine by not angling hip/body correctly). With that said: Even without flips it was major Fun. Very fast learning curve (and I am a very slow learner with regards to complex coordinations), the freefalling… Also, flips are an advanced technique, we only attempted them by the end of the course; I felt quite safe by then from breaking my neck, I had learned to control the fall and the spinning. Please note that this risk assessment is based on me weighing 65kgs.
If I can’t do any flips on the trampoline, I’m not sure it’s worth it.
Another question is whether there’s any simple neck-brace I can wear to avoid spinal injuries, which are the main thing I’m worried about. I’m okay with a 0.1% chance of pain, it’s life-altering injuries (or more to the point, work-altering injuries) that I want to avoid.
I don’t have any statistics handy, but once you learn flips from an instructor and practice about 1000 times carefully and under supervision over several sessions, it is a safe activity, because of the muscle memory taking over. Unless you make it unsafe by pushing your limits or jumping while impaired. Of course, there are always freak accidents like this, but the odds are at the noise level, such as being rear-ended hard when driving.
I once took a course, 30 hours, we jumped on a professional rectangular trampoline without vertical safety nets, supervised. I too was worried about spinal injuries. According to my teachers, most injuries do happen by jumping out of the bounds or impromper landing technique (taking the landing shock the spine by not angling hip/body correctly). With that said: Even without flips it was major Fun. Very fast learning curve (and I am a very slow learner with regards to complex coordinations), the freefalling… Also, flips are an advanced technique, we only attempted them by the end of the course; I felt quite safe by then from breaking my neck, I had learned to control the fall and the spinning. Please note that this risk assessment is based on me weighing 65kgs.