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 “Most studies define injury as time loss from participation, whereas
many athletes with overuse injuries continue to participate despite
pain and reduced performance. When time-loss definitions are used,
about 90 percent of overuse injuries appear to be missed,”
researchers write in the journal BMJ Open Sport and Exercise
Medicine.
Angelo Richardson of Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences in The
Netherlands and colleagues studied 60 young women who competed at
the national or international level in soccer, basketball or
gymnastics. The average age of the study participants was 17.
Every two weeks during the 2014-2015 season, the athletes filled out
questionnaires that asked about health problems, including not just
new injuries but also overuse injuries, which occur over time as a
result of repeated stresses on tissues, bones and joints.
Overall, at any given time during the study, 48 percent of the
athletes reported injuries, the authors found. And every two weeks,
nearly 61 percent of the athletes were reporting some sort of health
problem - either injury or illness.
Put another way, if a thousand athletes such as these were to
participate in their sports for an hour, nine of them would sustain
an injury, the researchers said. By comparison, a 2016 study of high
school soccer players in the U.S. found that if a thousand of them
were to practice or play soccer for an hour, only two would sustain
an injury – with only a slight difference between girls and boys.
Injury rates were similar for all three sports. But when it came to
“substantial” injuries, the soccer and basketball players were at
higher risk, with rates of roughly 28 percent in each group,
compared to the gymnasts, whose rate of substantial injuries was 16
percent.
The high prevalence of self-reported injuries among these talented
female athletes suggests that efforts toward prevention are needed,
the authors wrote.
“I believe this study provides some real value to what we know as
health care providers who work in sport,” athletic trainer Scott
Sailor, who is president of the National Athletic Trainers’
Association, told Reuters Health in an email.
“Often the data we have deals with time loss injuries and the
majority of injuries athletic trainers treat on a daily basis are
non-time loss,” said Sailor, who was not involved in the study.
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It’s crucial that athletes be appropriately prepared for the demands
of the sport, Sailor said. This involves making sure they have
adequate strength and flexibility, but it goes beyond that, to
making sure they have appropriate movement patterns - that the way
they run, jump, lunge, land, etc. is efficient and effective so that
they don't get their joint in a position where their body can't
protect them from injuring tissues, he said.
“Working with athletic trainers or other sports medicine
professionals can provide added benefit and ensure proper form,
movement and reduced risk of injury. Equally important is ensuring
our athletes have adequate nutrition, hydration and rest,” he said.
Failing to do these things predisposes the athlete to injury and
illness, he added.
“Most training for athletes has now transitioned from maximum lifts
in the gym to functional exercises that train sport-specific
movement patterns,” said Lawrence Spriet, a researcher in the
Department of Human Health and Nutritional Sciences at the
University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada, in email to Reuters Health.
“Ensuring that athletes fuel properly through their diet, have
consistent warm-ups and cool-downs before and after exercise, and
use individualized training protocols can all assist in injury
prevention,” said Spriet, who wasn’t involved in the study.
It is not uncommon for athletes to sustain injuries but it is
essential to try to prevent injuries that cause time-loss from
training and competition, decrease performance levels, and that can
become chronic if not treated properly, Spriet added.
“Seeking treatment at the onset of complaints or injury will help
avoid this,” he said.
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/2qgXKq2 BMJ Open Sport and Exercise Medicine,
online April 23, 2017
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