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Posted on Thursday September 24th at 10:46 a.m.
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Well I thought I would take a few minutes and talk about my awesome prosthetic that has helped me get as far as I have with my snowboarding. I am sure that I wouldn't have had the success I have had without the great help from Brent Woolston at Lab Industries in Levin.
The leg is a full Carbon Fibre construction with the help of a strategically placed Fox RP23 mountain bike shock in the foot. The shock is the main difference to other prosthetic feet on the market that are for specialised sports such as snowboarding. It provides me with controlled dorsi-flexion movement (the ability to push your knee over toes) and as you snowboarders out there know, this is a critical movement to be able to ride a snowboard correctly. Although I can't feel what's going on down there when riding, I can adjust the shock to take more or less pressure depending on the type of riding I'm doing.
The construction and design of the foot also allows for the absorption of the terrain I am riding or for landing jumps. The shock has a controlled pressure release rather than a sharp kick back like other feet. This gives it a huge advantage over other designs that rely on layered carbon to act like a spring.
The process in the development of the leg hasn't always been a smooth ride. In the first year of trials we had a few structural failures and some problems with my socket. With all designs it was back to the drawing board to sort out a solution. The new version supplied to me earlier this year has seen me snowboarding on it for around 400 hours including major competitions both here in NZ and earlier this year in Canada and America. Putting the leg through intensive field tests like this has paid off. The modified foot has held up to the test of time with some hard riding and big landings and with no issues with its performance or the structural integrity. This is ultimately the best snowboarding prosthetic in the world!
The foot and leg, along with some great support and direction from my coach Adam Dooney, has helped me progress my snowboarding from an amateur rider to World Number 2 in Adaptive Snowboarding in a relatively short period.
I can't wait to continue progressing the design of the prosthetic with Lab Industries and make it to World Number 1 in 2011 and more importantly representing New Zealand at the 2014 Paralympics.
The Company
lab-industries.co.nz
