SAFEST SLOPES AROUND; MACHINE HELPS SKIERS GET THEIR MOJO WORKING AGAIN AFTER SERIOUS INJURY.

Byline: Phil Davis Staff Writer

For Susan Baumgard, having snow rushing past her cheek as she slashes down the slopes on her snowboard is an ``addiction.''

``I dream about it,'' said Baumgard, 34, an Encino native who worked as an instructor at ski resorts in Mammoth and Lake Tahoe, ``I've been skiing since I was 9 years old. And I lived for 10 years in the mountains, so I was getting 150 days on my snowboard (a year).''

Then, a few years ago, two accidents - ironically unrelated to snowboarding - forced her to withdraw from the slopes. She couldn't work. In fact, some days she could barely move. ``I had to pretty much pop four Advil every six hours just to live,'' Baumgard said.

But today, three years after it seemed she'd retired her snowboard and ski parka for good, Baumgard is planning a triumphant return to the slopes.

She credits her recovery to a unique University of Southern California sports medicine program that not only helped rehabilitate her injured body but also taught her snowboarding techniques that won't aggravate her old wounds.

Baumgard is among the first graduates of USC's fledgling ski deck program. The $30,000 machine is similar to one you'd find in a swank ski chalet, or at the home of a world championship skier - a rolling carpet serves as snow, and a computer monitor helps create the illusion of racing down the slopes. Safety bars and a harness prevent falls.

USC orthopedic surgeon C. Thomas Vangsness and physical therapist Wendy Burke see the machine as a tool to help return athletes to an activity they love - the goal of any sports medicine program - and also train better skiers who are less likely to get hurt on the slopes.

``It's pretty novel; there are only three in the state of California,'' said Vangsness, co-director of the Center for Athletic Medicine at USC-University Hospital. ``I want to get them up there to try their knee reconstruction, or, if they have an injured shoulder, to practice their poling, to get in there in a real situation - what we call a sports-specific activity.''

Just as a computer user must learn how to type correctly after surgery to correct carpal tunnel syndrome, a skier needs to teach his or her body to use the proper muscles after surgery to repair an injury. In both cases, Burke said, it's a matter of correcting bad habits the body develops while trying to compensate for an injury.

``When you get injured, it's normal to cheat,'' she said. ``Your body is like water going down a mountain, it goes to the path of least resistance. When you step on a tack, you'll either hop on one foot, or if it went in your heel, you'll just walk on the toe of your foot. You still get from point A to B, you're just going to do it differently.''

When the injuries are severe - like Baumgard's - the bad habits stick.

She wrenched her shoulder during a tumble down a flight of stairs in 1995, then suffered severe whiplash in a 1997 car accident. Intense pain - so severe it sometimes made her vomit - caused her to use all the wrong muscles to do things as simple as walking her dogs. It twisted her until she stood, as she describes it, ``like a chicken.''

Vangsness repaired her damaged shoulder with laser surgery and realigned it during a nonsurgical procedure. Baumgard worked out with Burke for more than three painful years to rebuild the injured muscles, but even then a return to snowboarding seemed risky. In September, she had recovered enough to be among the first patients to try out the ski deck. Only patients who are almost back to normal are allowed to use it.

Burke discovered the deck while recuperating from her own knee injury. She was nervous about reinjuring her knee, and friends at a ski shop steered her to championship skier Bob Salerno, who was selling training time on his personal ski deck.

Burke, trained to watch how muscles work, immediately saw the deck as a great tool.

``It can really discriminate the fine subtleties of how people cheat or compensate,'' she said. ``The (ski slope) is very forgiving. We can not be perfect and still get down the hill pretty well. Most of the balance stuff happens instantaneously. You kind of ziggle zag and wiggle wob and catch your balance. On the ski deck, if you start to go off balance, it exaggerates all your imperfections. It makes it easy for me to see it.''

Its safety features allow a skier to work on one problem at a time without worrying about falling or hitting an ice patch or a tree.

The ski deck was an easy sell to her boss, Vangsness, an avid snowboarder and believer in creating realistic situations that get his patients back into their game.

Vangsness hopes the deck's safety features will appeal not only to injured skiers but also to worried parents who don't want to turn their kids loose on a snowboard without proper training. USC's sports medicine program offers ski lessons on the deck at $100 an hour.

``We're trying to get parents with kids who want to snowboard or ski - which is pretty darn dangerous - to come on down, and we'll teach them how to do it the right way,'' said Vangsness, who broke a couple of ribs on his first snowboard excursion. ``They can train on it, practice their edge control and balance and do it with a safety belt around them.''

Baumgard said the deck is a great training tool.

``If you can get it all together on the deck, you're going to be a great skier on the hill,'' she said. She said it gave her the confidence to once again indulge her addiction.

``I can't wait - if it would just snow,'' Baumgard said. ``I was going to go (two weeks ago), but there's no snow. I need it to dump some footage before I go out there. The last thing I want to do is get up on a snowboard, fall on a rock and hurt myself.

``I'm so excited,'' she continued, ``if I have to travel to Colorado to do this, I'll do it. I won't eat so I can go snowboarding. Priorities are priorities.''

Basic training for skiers

USC physical therapist Wendy Burke offers the following tips for people who are planning to hit the slopes this ski and snowboarding season - and not end up in one of her grueling rehabilitation sessions to rebuild a torn muscle or dislocated shoulder:

Get loose: Do lunges, squat thrusts and leg stretches to loosen the muscles up before putting on skis or a snowboard. This gives the muscles flexibility so joints can go through a full range of motion.

Build strength before skiing: Muscles in the lower extremities - quadriceps, hamstrings and calves - get a workout during skiing or snowboarding, and they need to be both flexible and strong. Working out on stairs (jogging or walking up and down) or a stair machine works out the muscles used for skiing and is a great way to build the strength and endurance needed to spend a day on the slopes.

Don't forget the heart muscle: Biking, walking and any form of aerobic exercise helps prepare the heart for a workout on the slopes. This also builds endurance.

Work on balance: The worst crashes happen when a loss of balance triggers a catastrophic chain of events. A skier should be able to stand on one leg for two minutes without wobbling. Burke suggests trying this while doing the dishes, brushing your teeth or talking on the phone. It two minutes is easy, take it further by shooting baskets or hitting tennis balls on one leg. This will help the body learn to compensate for the constant changes in center of gravity that occur while skiing.

- Phil Davis

CAPTION(S):

4 Photos, box

Photo: (1 -- cover -- color) Back on the slopes

Injured skiers return to form with USC program

(2) Dr. C. Thomas Vangsness helps Susan Baumgard on the ski deck at USC as part of her treatment after shoulder surgery.

(3) Physical therapist Wendy Burke helps former snowboard instructor Susan Baumgard glide down virtual slopes on USC's ski deck, which is being used to retrain injured skiers.

(4) no capition (Skiing)

John McCoy/Staff Photographer

Box: Basic training for skiers (See text)