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Common Sports Injuries, Prevention And Treatments
While sports are a part of a healthy lifestyle, injuries can happen too. Anyone who has been involved in sports has most likely suffered from one injury or another at some point. Sports can be physically demanding, requiring the body to endure greater amounts of stress than normal.
What is a Sports Injury?
Sports injuries are injuries that occur when engaging in sports or exercise. It can occur due to overtraining, lack of conditioning, and improper form or technique. Failing to warm up increases the risk of sports injuries. Bruises, strains, sprains, tears, and broken bones can result from sports injuries. Soft tissues like muscles, ligaments, tendons, fascia, and bursae may be affected.
What are the most common sports injuries?
Common sports injuries include sprains, strains, swollen muscles, shin splints, rotator cuff injuries, knee injuries, fractures, and dislocations. There are a lot of injuries that involve the shoulder, knee, elbow and ankle in sports injuries.
In the knee, most commonly seen sports injuries are ACL, PCL, MCL, Meniscal tears, Ligament tears, Runner's Knee etc. In the shoulder, we come across Rotator cuff injury, Slap tears, Shoulder dislocation. When it comes to the ankle, some of the most common sports injuries are Achilles Tendon Rupture and ATF (Anterior Talofibular Ligament) injuries.
Types of Sports Injury
Sports injuries are basically of two types. Almost all the common sports injuries revolve around these two major types:
Acute Injury:
These are the injuries that happen because of sudden trauma. Common acute injuries among athletes include sprain, fracture, strain, and contusions. Acute injuries have very noticeable symptoms.
Chronic Injuries
These injuries may begin as acute injuries which fail to heal completely or may happen because of training and technique errors. A series of small injuries can lead to minor fractures, muscle tears, ligament tears etc.
The most common sports injuries are:
Intake more vitamin and mineral-rich food, take a proper amount of calcium, exercise regularly and avoid smoking and drinking. Do ensure to follow the simple guidelines mentioned so that your bones remain strong and healthy as you age. Create a routine and stick to it.
Let's dive a little deeper into understanding these common sports injuries:
1. Ankle Sprains
A sprain is a stretch or/and tear of a ligament. Now you may wonder what a ligament is. It is a fibrous connective tissue that connects all bones. A sprain may occur if you fall suddenly and get an ankle twist, walking or running on an uneven surface, or during combat sports. Symptoms include pain and difficulty in moving the ankle, swelling around the ankle, stiffness, inability to put weight on the affected ankle and bruising. There's also a chance that tendons, cartilage, and blood vessels might also be damaged due to sprain.
Strains are commonly mistaken for sprains. Overstretching or tearing of ligaments are sprains whereas overstretching or tearing of muscles or tendons is a sprain. Muscle spasm, pain around the affected joint, swelling, limited flexibility and difficulty using the joint's gull range of motion are some of the common symptoms of strains. One of the main differences is that with a sprain you may have bruising around the affected joint, whereas with a strain, you may have spasms in the affected muscle.
Knee injuries are a big part of sports injuries and mostly treated by orthopaedic surgeons who have super specialization in Sports Medicine. Runner's Knee is a common term used to describe one of the several conditions with the characteristics of pain behind or around the kneecap, also known as patella. These conditions include anterior knee pain syndrome, patellofemoral malalignment, chondromalacia patella, and iliotibial band syndrome. As the name suggests, running is a common cause of runner's knee, but any activity that repeatedly stresses the knee joint can cause the disorder. This can include walking, skiing, biking, jumping, cycling, and playing football. It occurs by overuse muscle imbalance and inadequate stretching. Symptoms include pain under or around the kneecap, pain when walking, swelling, popping in the knee.
Another common sports injury of the knee is a meniscus tear. A meniscus tear happens when you forcibly twist or rotate your knee, especially when putting the pressure of your weight on it, leading to a torn meniscus. Each of your knees has C-shaped pieces of cartilage that act as a cushion between the shinbone and thigh bone (menisci). Symptoms include stiffness and swelling, pain in your knee, catching or locking your knee, difficulty straightening knee, feeling of knee giving away.
Four pieces of muscle work together to form the rotator cuff. The rotator cuff keeps your shoulder moving in all directions. The rotator cuff attaches the humerus to the shoulder blade and helps to lift and rotate your arms. A tear in any of these muscles can weaken the rotator cuff. A rotator cuff tear is caused by a fall onto your arm if you lift a heavy object too fast. The tendon can partially or completely tear off the humerus head. Symptoms include pain when lifting or lowering your arms, weakness when lifting or rotating your arms, pain when lying on the affected shoulder.
An ACL injury is a tear or sprain of the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) one of the strong bands of tissue that help connect your thigh bone (femur) to your shinbone (tibia). It provides stability to the knee.
ACL (Anterior Cruciate Ligament) Tears most commonly occur when you are changing direction rapidly, slowing down with running, or landing from a jump. The knee is unstable when the ligament is torn. Symptoms include loud pop or popping sensation in the knee, rapid swelling, severe pain and tenderness in the knee, loss of full range of motion.
PCL and MCL tears are less common as compared to the ACL injury. However the symptoms of PCL injuries tend to be similar to those of ACL tears.
Repetitive use of the elbow, for example, during golf swings or tennis swings, cricket etc. can cause tiny tears in the elbow's tendons. Plumbers, painters and those in similar professions are also at risk. Wearing a special brace on the forearm may help decrease pressure on the sore area. Physical therapy may be helpful. Surgery may be an option for tennis elbow when other treatments have failed.
One thing common in all sports injuries is that it is not just associated with people who are professional athletes or they are sports persons. Even a faulty posture can also lead to a sports injury. Likewise, when it comes to excessive weightlifting, there can be shoulder injuries, or ankle injuries because of sudden change in motion.
The treatment of sports injuries depends upon the type of injuries. Usually, minor injuries can be taken care of with the common R.I.C.E method; Rest, Ice/Immobilize, Apply Compression and Elevate the injured area. If the injury is major, it may require a surgical intervention. Regardless of the severity of the injury, if you feel pain or have doubts, it's always best to consult a sports medicine specialist who can give you the right treatment and get you moving in no time.
All the grade one and grade two sports injuries heal in a couple of weeks. If you have a grade three or grade four injury that means the severity is much higher. It involves surgical intervention, and the recovery period is somewhere around three to four months. However, this varies from one individual to another and it's best to check with your surgeon on what to expect during and after the surgery.
Here are a few basic steps to prevent a common sports injury: Maintain a correct posture.
Sports injuries are quite common. Taking a break from your regular routine can be tough. But letting a sports injury go untreated can potentially cause more harm. Seek professional help as soon as you get injured and recover under the right medical guidance to return to your sports faster. This can definitely help you enjoy your favorite sports pain-free for years to come!