Injury Prevention

For people who are involved in any sort of regular exercise, one of the most annoying problems to occur is the onset of an injury. Sports injuries, as well as the physical trauma, as recent studies have shown, are an expensive problem both in terms of time and money. There is also a psychological effect as the disappointment of having to reduce or stop exercise, training and competing can be quite significant.

Sports injuries can often be prevented by ascertaining how and why injuries occur. Additionally, many injuries take longer to heal or resolve than they should because of to poor early treatment. Identifying and understanding the causal factors is critical in effective management, treatment and prevention of various sports injuries. We will discuss the causes, treatment and prevention of various sports injuries.

Some of the common terms used in sports medicine may need explaining. "Soft tissue injuries" are injuries to muscles, tendons and ligaments. "Acute" injuries are those which have recently occurred, or have happened for the first time. "Chronic" injuries are those which are long term or repeatedly occurring.

Types of Injury
There are two types of injuries that occur in sport: traumatic injuries and overuse injuries. Traumatic injuries are those which occur as an "incident". These incidents may involve contact with another person, failure of exercise equipment, or damage caused by poor function of the body. Examples of traumatic injuries are a corked thigh, sprained ankle, torn hamstring or a torn ligament in the knee.

Overuse injuries are the result of "cumulative" trauma. That is small amounts of tissue damage occurring over time, which the body does not adequately cope with or recover from. Examples of overuse injuries include achilles tendonitis, plant fasciitis, retro-patella pain syndrome and shoulder tendonitis.

Management or treatment of both of these types of injuries is discussed later, but it is important to understand that both types of injury often have causal factors which should be considered when discussing injury management and prevention.

Understanding why injuries can occur leads to the ability to more effectively treat them, as well as establishing procedures for preventing injuries from occurring in the first place.

All sporting injuries can be attributed to contact, intrinsic dysfunction, extrinsic dysfunction or training error.

(a) Contact
Although most injuries involving contact such as tackling in football, or falls due to pushing and shoving in "non-contact" sports such as basketball, are viewed as unavoidable, it is worth considering the role of preparation in these cases. If the player being tackled or pushed was a little stronger, faster or more agile, the incident causing the injury may have been avoided, or the damage minimized by a greater ability to resist applied forces.

(b) Intrinsic dysfunction
Intrinsic dysfunction refers to a problem within the body that results in injury. Both traumatic and overuse injuries can result from such dysfunction. A strained or torn hamstring in a sprinter may occur due to the hamstring muscle being too tight, or a poorly coordinated contraction of the muscle causing it to tear. Achilles tendonitis may be found to be due to abnormal movement into pronation of the ankle - caused by a structural problem of the foot. Factors such as tight or weak muscles and poor foot structure are called biomechanical problems.

(c) Extrinsic dysfuction
Extrinsic dysfunction injuries are those caused by factors external to the body. Activities such as running or aerobics if performed on concrete floors or wearing inappropriate footwear may lead to injury.

(d) Training error
Probably the most common cause of overuse injury is training error; training too much, too hard or with poor planning. Increasing running mileage too quickly or insufficient recovery time between hard exercise bouts often results in overuse injuries. Attempting training sessions or exercises without sufficient preparation or skill levels also lead to injury.

Often a combination of these causal factors is present in athletes who develop injuries. Identifying these factors is critical for the management and prevention of sports related injuries.

source:Sports Injury Prevention and Rehabilitation by Eric Shamus and Jennifer Shamus