00:00The Paralympics are way more interesting than the Olympics. Well, thank you for that. I think so too.
00:05Hey everybody, Mike Schultz here, Paralympic snowboarder for Team USA. Let's answer your
00:09questions from the internet. This is Paralympian Support.
00:17Seven Inches Daddy, what are the reasons that U.S. does so well in the Olympics but not in the
00:22Paralympics? Are you kidding me? I'm a three-time medalist, gold and two silvers. My teammates
00:27carrying well over a dozen medals. I think we're doing pretty good. All right, here's a question
00:32from Cora. What are unique events in the Paralympics? There's a lot of similarities and a lot of
00:37differences in Olympics compared to Paralympics. Paralympics actually means parallel to Olympics,
00:44not paralyzed as a lot of people think. Paralympics also has a unique logo. The Olympics have the
00:49rings. Paralympics has the agitos. The reality is there's far less events in the Paralympics
00:54compared to the Olympics. In summer, wheelchair rugby is unique. I got to watch that. That's
00:59really exciting. One unique thing about Paralympic snowboarding is we do two events. We do border
01:05cross and bank slalom. Border cross is head-to-head racing against three other athletes at the same
01:10time, pull out of the start gate at the same time and race across the finish line over bumps and jumps
01:14and turns. Bank slalom is event race against the clock through a course of bank turns, anywhere from
01:21like 14 to 20 turns. I love it, especially when the courses are built really well. It's really flowy
01:28and a lot of fun to ride. The unfortunate thing is we don't get to train on it a whole lot. A lot of
01:33times the only time we get in a bank slalom course is actually at a competition. Next one from La Petite
01:38Toast. Does the Paralympics have an objective way of ensuring the athletes are in a level playing field
01:44when it comes to their disabilities or is there always a certain level of unfairness? There's so many
01:49different factors with disabilities and how it affects one. However, we can't have 10 or 15
01:58different classification levels. There would just be too many different classes. For Paralympic
02:03snowboarding, there's two different classification levels for lower limb. LL1, which is basically two
02:10joints that have been affected. LL2 is there's one joint that's been affected and one classification
02:16for upper limb. I'm above knee amputee. I'm missing my foot and my knee. So the biggest issue that I have
02:22is I can't pick my left foot up off the ground. I can't choose to flex my knee. I have to like rock
02:28back on my good side and jump. Compare that with another athlete that we have in our class. So he's
02:33missing both feet but has both knees and he's able to move both knees perfectly well. So in certain
02:40race courses, you know, it is a benefit to be able to move both knees compared to both ankles. So
02:47there's always going to be some level of unequal performance in the same classes. So it's part of
02:54the challenge of being a Paralympic athlete. Next one from Sparks Mandrill. What are ideal riding
03:00conditions? Number one factor is the sun. When that sun's shining, that definitely amps up the energy
03:06and the smile on your face when you go out snowboarding because nobody likes riding the
03:10clouds. Temperature wise, you know, I'm digging like 28, 29 degrees. The snow is still fluffy and
03:17it's warm. Today was not ideal. It was like single digits and 30 mile an hour wind gust blowing. It was
03:22not ideal. Jordan Beavis, eight. How long was your recovery and how long did it take to get a prosthetic?
03:29So I was actually injured racing snowcross in 2008 and I had a pretty quick recovery, especially
03:35considering how bad the injury was. I was actually up on my first prosthesis five and a half weeks
03:41after my amputation, which is quite speedy compared to most. I was very motivated to get back on my
03:47feet again. And I actually started racing snowmobiles within a month and a half of my injury and then
03:54racing X Games Adaptive Supercross seven months after my injury happened on a leg that I built in my
03:59garage, called it the Moto Knee and Versafoot. It was very basic mechanical knee system, which worked
04:05good for walking. But I really wanted to get back into riding my motocross bike in my snowmobile.
04:11That was my true passion and my profession at that time. My second passion in life is I'm a garage guy.
04:17I'm a I'm a doer and I'm a maker. I love to create things in my shop. And what better thing for me to
04:23put my time and effort in than creating my own prosthetic leg to allow me to do the things that I
04:30wanted to do and eventually created a company around it. And now I'm helping out a handful of
04:35other athletes from around the world. And a lot of them are my direct competitors. So when you see
04:40me racing at the Paralympics, all the competitors around me and all the other Paralympic athletes
04:44that are lower limb amputees in the snowboarding world will be wearing equipment for my company.
04:50Next question is from Termi. How to snowboard and ski as an above knee amputee? Well, I didn't start
04:57snowboarding until after I became an amputee. So I was kind of learning from scratch. But I guess the
05:02biggest challenge is you can't really feel where your foot is in space. So it takes time to really
05:08learn what that feedback feels like. And there's a lot of different adjustments for alignment and air
05:13pressures and angles of the prosthesis to help make you balance on top of the board. Honestly, it took me
05:20three seasons before I really got comfortable on a race course. And the difference between
05:24snowboarding as an above knee amputee and skiing is skiing, your legs are obviously working
05:30independently. So you're completely relying on your prosthesis to give you that balance and stability
05:35compared to on a snowboard where you're strapped into the board. So your legs are kind of working
05:40together. It's difficult, especially on really rough terrain. But if you're motivated to learn how to
05:46do something, you'll figure it out. As an adaptive athlete, it's all about paying attention to the
05:51details because you're not going to just bolt on a prosthesis and go out and rip runs. For example,
05:58the stance on a snowboard affects how things are set up. So if you ride regular, which is your left
06:03foot forward or ride goofy, which is your left foot in the back. I'm a left leg amputees. I ride regular.
06:09So my prosthesis is in the front and there are some benefits of that. I have more power out of my back
06:14leg. But the flip side is the athlete that rides with their good foot up front and prosthesis in
06:19the back. A lot of times they'll be able to initiate turns a little smoother compared to what I can.
06:25So there's always a trade off with with everything and how it's set up. Here's another question from
06:29Cora. What sports are the hardest to make prosthetics for? The more complex the movements are,
06:34the more difficult it is to recreate what your body naturally does. Track and field, sprinting,
06:41it's a very consistent series of movements. Basically the knee and the foot are swinging
06:46back and forth as fast as possible. And you're trying to get as much bounce off your toe as you
06:50can. So there'll be a mechanical knee that has basically zero resistance in it. And then it'll be
06:55like a carbon fiber leaf spring as your foot. So when you, your weight hits it, it compresses and it
07:01extends as quick as possible. Compare that to snowboarding where we're going down a course with
07:06turns and rollers and jumps. Our legs got to do a lot more different things at different paces.
07:12The hardest part is finding that, that happy medium that works good for quick movements or
07:18slower movements. Like for example, you're on a turn going through a berm and the g-forces are
07:22compressing you. Your leg's not really moving anywhere, but it needs to have a consistent resistance
07:28there. You get out of the turn and you're going over a roller or a jump and you need to absorb that.
07:33So then you need to move quick and allow your legs to compress and extend when you need it to give
07:38you that stability over the jump or the roller. And next up we got air lust. How do snow conditions
07:42compare across the world? That's a good question because it does have differences depending where
07:47you are. My favorite place to snowboard personally has got to be Colorado. I love Copper Mountain
07:52is my favorite place to go because there's so much different types of terrains with the jump lines in
07:57the parks. Compare that to like Utah. Utah's got a little powder more compared to like Italy where
08:03the wind's blowing and there's no trees out there and it's a lot steeper rock faces and the the snow
08:08situates itself differently. Commercial Sock 3270 asks, skiing or snowboarding? Well obviously snowboarding.
08:16No, actually I learned how to ski as an amputee before I learned how to snowboard. I like skiing gates. I
08:22really enjoy like doing GS turns around gates on skis, but honestly snowboarding is way more fun.
08:29I love being able to ride rough terrain on a snowboard better than on skis. It's just more fun. It's got
08:35more style to it in my mind. Skiing is typically easier to learn how to do because you're going straight
08:41and you're able to get around flat surfaces a lot better because you can skate around compared to a
08:46snowboard. You got to unstrap and you got to kick alongside your board. So you just can't move around
08:51flat areas as good on a snowboard. And the other like challenge with snowboarding is you're going
08:57sideways. It's an unnatural way to go down the mountain. So whenever you're in like an uncomfortable
09:02situation or you get scared a little bit, you just stand up and you rotate. And when you do that,
09:06you're going to catch your, your toe edge and you're going to slap your face into the ground.
09:10So I always tell everybody, if you want to learn how to snowboard from scratch, it's usually like a three
09:14day commitment. The first day is not going to be too much fun. The second day, it'll start to click.
09:20And then on the third day, things will, you know, hopefully be to the point where you're comfortable,
09:24you know, going from point A to point B without falling on your face or your butt.
09:29Andy Doodle 56, he says, Monster Mike, how does that cool prosthetic used by winter
09:35Paralympians attach to your leg and board? How does it work? For my prosthesis, there's three main
09:40components to it. One is the socket that slides over my residual limb, which is
09:44carbon fiber. It's got a threaded adapter that threads in. So I'll loosen up a screw.
09:48I'll rotate my everyday walking leg off and then I'll just swap this on there. My foot slides into
09:54a standard snowboard boot, which is not the easiest thing to do because you can't flatten it out or
09:59stretch it out like you can a regular foot. So that's always a little bit of a pain in the butt.
10:03I just use a standard binding system Burton with the straps on it. It's got a foot guard right here
10:07that kind of fills up the space inside of the boot. So the binding strap can tighten up over it
10:11without affecting how the shock moves and compresses. And then it's just a foam sole plate
10:16on the bottom. The two components that I developed at my company is the knee. It's called the moto knee.
10:22And then the versa foot. There's a common attachment point right here that connects the foot to the knee.
10:28It's a four sided pyramid with set screws on it. So you can just loosen up a couple of the set screws
10:33and swap out components. And for example, a below knee amputee doesn't need the knee.
10:38So he'll just use the versa foot and attach it at this point here.
10:41Tac Psychological 2928 asks, why do snowboarders sit in the middle of the slope?
10:47I do not sit in the middle of the slope. So don't pin that on me.
10:51I don't know either. Yeah. Isn't that annoying when people just like plop down right in the middle of
10:55the run, it just messes up everybody. So don't just stop in the middle of the slope,
10:58go off to the side and make sure the uphill traffic can see where you're at. That's safety 101.
11:05From playfulinterview753, what's the biggest design challenge when building a prosthetic that has to
11:11function at freezing temperatures and high impact? The temperature does affect things. I mean,
11:18I actually just got off the mountain right now and basically single digit temperatures. So being that
11:23there's hydraulic oil in the shock system here, the viscosity raises when it's cold. So it doesn't move
11:31as quick. For example, when I'm sitting around for a while waiting to get on course, I'll jump up and
11:36down or squat up and down like six or eight times to get that hydraulic fluid moving. And then also,
11:41some of the materials could get brittle in really cold weather. So we've chosen materials that, you know,
11:47hold up into, you know, a wide range of temperatures. The majority is 7000 series aluminum. We've got
11:54titanium adapters, stainless steel fasteners to prevent corrosion when we're using them in and around
11:59mud and water and snow. And then some of the components here, like the protective covers that
12:04we've got on top of the knee and then also on the foot. These are a nylon X. So these are 3D printed parts.
12:10It's basically nylon infused with carbon fiber, and they've seemed to hold up pretty good in the
12:16subzero weather. I've had some other materials that have cracked, you know, when it gets, you know,
12:2110 degrees or colder. It's hard to duplicate some of those high stresses and high impacts of landing off
12:27a big jump. One of the tests I did, I climb up a ladder six feet up and I just jump and land on my feet.
12:33That gave me a lot of feedback on how I should set up the calibration of the shock, you know, more air
12:38pressure or more hydraulic dampening. I broke a lot of parts and had to refine them. Lots of trial and error.
12:44All right. This one's from the amputee subreddit. How would you describe the feel
12:48of snow through a prosthetic leg when carving or absorbing impact? Have you ever been on crutches?
12:53A crutch is an extension of your body movement, right? And so everything feels a little delayed
13:00and the inputs are a little bit different compared to, you know, putting a weight on your foot. And that's
13:04a lot like what a prosthesis is. And for me as an above knee amputee, you know, there's two flexible
13:10joints. You have the ankle joint and you have the knee joint. So just think of that crutch has
13:16two hinges on it and you have to get the weight just in the right spot so it doesn't compress on
13:20you or you'll topple over it. So that's what it's like on a prosthesis. And you throw some snow in
13:26there and high speeds and everything has a little bit of a delay to it. That's why it's so important to
13:32have perfect body positioning over the snowboard as an amputee, because you have to like anticipate
13:38what's going to happen because you can't exactly feel it. All right, here's a question from
13:42snowboarding subreddit. What is most important to you when it comes to a snowboard? The first
13:46question is what kind of terrain are you going to be riding on? A lot of times people ride with a
13:51snowboard that's too narrow for their foot size. And so you have extra toe drag or heel drag. And then
13:56when you're going to rail a turn, you lose traction and you slide out. What I'm always looking at,
14:01so I've got a quiver of like 10 different race boards. And there's two factors with those. One is the
14:07stiffness of how much pressure it takes to flex it. And then the other is the side cut radius.
14:13And when you pick up a snowboard, you can see it's kind of shaped like an hourglass. So this radius
14:18here affects how tight you can turn. This one right here is actually a tighter radius. It's got eight
14:24meters. Some of my longer BX boards are up to like 13 meter radius. So that just affects when you go up on
14:31your edge, that radius is going to help make that turn. So Schmidz asks, what are the most important skills
14:36to learn to take on steep black runs? That's a good one. I'm not good at steep black runs.
14:42It doesn't matter what terrain you are, but finding that right balance for the slope you're on. So many
14:48times people just as a reaction, they sit back seat and they're too much on their back leg, which,
14:56you know, that affects how quickly you can react to turn or stop or maneuver. So on the snowboarding
15:01balances everything. And that completely affects how your board reacts to how you're moving or want
15:07to move. So be in the right stacked position all the time, depending on, you know, flat or steeps,
15:13it all, it all matters. So next one, we got Valley 566. The Paralympics are way more interesting than
15:20the Olympics. Well, thank you for that. I think so too. Yeah, there's a lot more layers to Paralympic
15:27sports, especially with us in snowboarding. We're standing upright. We're using standard
15:31snowboard equipment, and then we just use prosthetics. There's so many different storylines
15:36with the athletes. You know, a lot of us have been through really tough things in life that we've had
15:40to recover from and learn the sport over again as, you know, an adaptive athlete. You know, as an athlete,
15:46you're trying to be tip top shape physically. As a Paralympian, there's a whole nother level to it.
15:51We got to carry our extra tools and nuts and bolts with us. And there's so much fine tuning that goes
15:56into our prosthetic and adaptive devices. So you could be in the best shape of your life,
16:01but if your adaptive equipment isn't performing up to the level you need it to,
16:05that can definitely affect your performance. It's nonstop working on
16:09our physical performance, but also the performance of our adaptive equipment. So
16:14it gets tricky sometimes. We got WYA42 Wallaby Wave. Genuinely curious, Monster Mike 5. What problem
16:22did your Moto Knee solve that other prosthetics totally missed? Personally, I've got like two
16:27basic prosthesis that I use. One is my Everyday Walker, which is really cool. It's got a microprocessor
16:34in it that controls the hydraulic system. It doesn't move by itself, but the computer decides how it reacts
16:40to my inputs. And when I'm riding my snowboard or riding my motocross bike, you need that resistance
16:46there. It's like flexing your quadriceps as you're in a squat. So for example, on my everyday walking
16:52leg, if I go into a squat, there's no resistance helping me hold my body weight up. It just slowly
16:58collapses. And so on the Moto Knee, it uses a mountain bike shock in here with compressed air.
17:04And there's also hydraulic oil that controls how quickly things move. So the air spring is like your
17:09quadricep muscles. They help absorb impacts. For example, I'm doing a heel side turn. The air pressure
17:14helps support my body weight as the G-forces add up. It's the same type of shock in the foot. And we
17:20can adjust the air pressure basically from zero up to 300 PSI, which controls how quickly things react
17:26and compress and extend, just like your mountain bike. And for this one specifically, this is my
17:32snowboard leg. And the alignment requires a lot of flexion in the knee right here, which makes it
17:37unstable to walk on. So for example, I shift weight into it, it's going to flex. So when I'm walking to the
17:42lift or I'm walking around the resort, I've got a mechanical lock. So it prevents the knee joint
17:47from flexing. And when I strap into the snowboard and I pull the pin and I'm ready to go. The unique
17:52part about it is the adjustability. So I can make this work for a lot of different activities via the
17:58different settings, alignment options and air pressures and hydraulic pressures. So when I get on
18:03my snowboard and I want to hook it over a big 50, 60 foot jump, the hydraulic system and the air pressure
18:09work like my, my leg muscles or my quadriceps to absorb those impacts. When I first started back
18:14in 2009, spring of 2009, there was very little options for that type of a knee system. I'm like,
18:21I wanted to make it versatile for a lot of other sports, board sports, skiing, motocross, mountain
18:27biking, water sports, water skiing, wakeboarding, horseback riding. Probably the number two most common
18:34use for it is actually strength training in the gym, lifting weights, doing squats and jumps and
18:38that kind of thing. So here's a question from Cora. What's the most common misconception people have
18:43about Paralympic athletes? So many people just think we are excited to be able to do our sport.
18:49The reality is when you get to the Paralympic level, we are competitors, true competitors
18:54through and through. We put in as much work and effort as any other professional level athlete.
19:00All right. Next question. Daft W, how do you qualify to be a Paralympian? Each sport is a little
19:05bit different for us in the Paris snowboard world. So we have a series of national level races where we
19:11accrue points and then we go to like a continental cup and you accrue points. The ultimate is actually
19:17the Paralympic games that only happen every four years, but we have a world cup tour with eight to
19:2110 rounds every year. From the Chris Pringle, random 3am thoughts. I wonder where the next big leap in
19:27prosthetics will be. Materials, sensors, AI tuning or something totally different. Honestly,
19:33I see the integration of electronics that can adapt to our nervous system so we can actually
19:42control what our limb does. There's been some really big advancements in upper limb prosthetic
19:47technology to where they're gathering information from muscles and nerves that can control like a
19:53wrist movement and finger movements. Just expanding on that because the ultimate goal for me as an
19:59amputee is being able to make my prosthetic limb do what I want when I want. Right now it's just reactive
20:06to whatever weight I shift into it and it just has two movements. It can swing free or it can have
20:13resistance. If we had control over when and how that movement and resistance reacted, that's when things get
20:20really cool. From the Olympics subreddit, they're wondering how do most Olympic athletes earn a
20:25living? The reality is there's probably only one percent of Olympians and Paralympians that actually
20:31make enough money by just doing their sport. The majority of the money from the top level
20:36Olympic and Paralympic athletes comes from partnerships, sponsors that support them. The unique
20:41thing about Olympics and Paralympics is we only have this big event once every four years and a lot of times
20:48we don't get that financial support and partnerships the three years between. So we're preparing and
20:54putting effort in for four years and our big show is only every four years. And some of the partnerships
21:01and sponsorships, endorsements, some of them are pretty black and white, but some of them go far
21:06deeper than just slapping a sticker on your helmet or taking a photo for them. For example, doing TV
21:11commercials or doing public speaking. A lot of that happens on the Paralympic side. One of my big
21:17partners now is Autodesk. We align very well. It's a CAD software company that they're helping me further
21:23development of, you know, some of the new innovative components that, you know, I got on my drawing board
21:28back home. All right, this one's from Chaz Mawaladka. Can Paralympic athletes participate in Olympics?
21:36Yeah, if they're physically capable of performing at a competitive level at the Olympics, yeah, there's
21:43nothing really stopping them as long as there's no assistive or adaptive devices that excels their
21:49performance over a regular able-bodied athlete. He says Leah. Has any Paralympic athlete beaten
21:55Olympic athlete results in the same event in the same year? I know there's a sprinter. He's a bilateral
22:01BK amputee who had very competitive times that was right up into the times as Olympic level. So yeah, they can run fast.
22:10A bilateral BK amputee who's got two running blades. There is a point to where the stride can be
22:19longer than an able-bodied person. And therefore there's been people saying that, you know, it's an
22:25advantage. Well, it may be stride for stride, but there's a flip side to it as well. So if a bilateral
22:32amputee is trying to run out of the starting blocks, it's not going to be as quick as somebody with two
22:37good feet that can power out of the blocks. All right, here's another question from Quora.
22:41How are advanced prosthetics changing the world of sports? It very much can affect the overall
22:47performance of an athlete depending on their prosthetic equipment. 2014 was the first Paralympic
22:52games that had snowboarding in it. Look at the performance then to what it is right now, and it is
22:58incredible to see the level of performance and speeds increase since then. And it's pretty cool
23:05to be part of it both as an athlete as well as a prosthetic designer, and it's not slowing down.
23:10So those are all the questions we have for today. Be sure to tune in to the Paralympics
23:152026 Milano Cortina in Italy. It's going to be awesome.
23:19Thanks for watching Paralympian Support.
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