Ice skaters are good at it. So are clowns. I'm talking about falling, and these folks know how to do it without seriously hurting themselves.

On this slushy day, as people skid across sidewalks (I mean me), I thought, what better time to talk about preventing injuries from a bad fall. Here is a rule of thumb that I picked up from the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons:

When you fall, try to land on your side, or buttocks. Then roll over naturally, turning your head in the direction of the roll.

I asked Dr. William Strassberg, the Maine representative of the academy and president of the Maine Medical Association, to elaborate.

"You absorb the energy of the fall as you go down by sort of falling on your side," Strassberg said. "The energy gets spread out between the calves and the shoulder."

"The bottom line is don't let the force of gravity concentrate in one spot," he continued. "When any one area receives less force, it is less likely to get significantly injured."

What if you're not so coordinated?

Strassberg said falling on the buttocks is a good second choice "when things are happening too fast to do the optimum plan."

"It's better than going down on your face," Strassberg said.

Strassberg said that we reflexively try to protect our faces and will splay out our palms to break the fall, but that could damage our wrists.

Hope this helps. Good luck out there today.

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