No one disputes at this point that sport provides benefits for physical and mental health of great value to those who practice it. However, it also carries with it the risk of injury. Among the most frequent sports injuries have been described sprains, strains, contusions, dislocations, fractures, and lacerations.
In most cases, these are low-impact injuries that resolve in a few weeks with the proper health management.
However, statistics indicate that About 20% of schoolchildren miss at least one day of school each year due to sports injuries, and 1 in 3 young people seek medical attention for a sports-related injury each year.
In addition, it must be recognized that in some cases sports practice has been associated with the development of concussion and cardiac arrest. Hence the recommendation to carry out medical check-ups before participating in sports practices, especially if these they are very demanding on a cardiovascular level.
Sports injuries are usually due to combination of several risk factorssome extrinsic and other intrinsic. Intrinsic factors refer to the age of the athlete himself, his previous health changes or his emotional state. The risk of contact in boxing and the risk of falling in gymnasts are considered extrinsic factors.
Contact and jumps increase injuries
Sports with a high risk of injury have been defined as those that involve contact. That is, individual or team sports in which there is a direct or indirect physical interaction between the different athletes, as occurs in football, basketball, handball or water polo.
In fact, alarmed by the high rates of serious and very serious neurological, traumatic and ocular injuries due to direct and indirect contact in ice hockey and American football, US institutions have modified the regulations of these disciplines to reduce these through of your penalty. The data has shown that it was a correct decision, since injuries in these sports in youth categories have been reduced by more than 50%.
Another characteristic frequently associated with the risk of injury is the need to jump to perform the activity. Something characteristic of snowboardathletics, rhythmic and artistic gymnastics or, once more, basketball.
Finally, sports played indoors (roofs) have also been linked to more injuries. This phenomenon might be due to the fact that most contact sports are held in closed spaces. In fact, this explanation would make sense with what was identified in an investigation in which they determined that there were no differences in the risk of suffering an injury to the play football indoors or outdoors.
preventive training
A safe training methodology must correctly schedule the time of the work sessions. Likewise, it is convenient to include different modalities of muscular and articular work, in addition to adequately training the sport specific gesture. In other words, rowers and canoeists must include mobility exercises and improvement of the movement of the upper limbs in their training routine (essential for the correct performance of their sports practice). In a homologous way, soccer players should do the same in relation to the lower limbs and swimmers with both arms and back.
In addition, within the training methodology, the factor that has shown the greatest risk for athletes is excessive exposure to sports practice. Or what is the same, train too much.
Sleep more and train less
Regardless of the sport discipline, it is necessary to take into account the individual factorsboth physical and psychological.
For example, the risk of injury increases in the 20 to 24 year window. Why? This may be due to the fact that young athletes are the ones who are most frequently exposed to more and longer training sessions.
In addition, maintaining inadequate lifestyles with habits among which are sleep less than seven hours a day or the consumption of ultra-processed foods and alcohol also increase the risk of injury, regardless of the sport discipline practiced.
How to prevent injuries?
Assuming that if a particular sport requires physical interaction with other participants or jumping might injure us more easily, the rest of the risk factors are manageable by athletes and the professionals around them. That is, sports team coaches, physical therapists and doctors can identify injury-prone individuals and tailor their training and rehabilitation programs. so that the risk of injury is minimized.
And as for so many other diseases and health disorders, the individual ability to manage aspects of our day to day life such as rest and nutrition will have notable effects.
