The Prevalence of Injuries in Athletics

Injuries present the significant problem for athletes andcoaches. Injuries are most often the largest barrier toimproving performance, due training time lost because ofan injury. It is therefore paramount that coaches have anunderstanding of the prevalence of injuries within athletics.

The most shocking statistic is that up to 96% of injuries in athletics are overuse

Unfortunately, injuries are extremely common within athletics with up to 76% of athletes experiencing an injury within any given year (D’Souza, 1994). These injuries obviously vary significantly depending on the event and the athlete, but interestingly it has been shown that up to 91% of all injuries occur at training (Zemper, 2005). The legs and lower extremities are the most commonly affected body region,accounting for approximately 80% of injuries in athletics(Edouard & Alonso, 2003).

Interestingly, overuse injuries are the most common type injuries that occur in athletics. Overuse injuries account for up to 96% of all injuries (Jacobsson et al., 2013). Overuse injuries occur when there is repeated action, stress or strain on a structure with insufficient time for recovery, which ultimately results to an injury.

The fact that up to 76% of athletes experience an injury in any given year (D’Souza, 1994) should be worrying to both coaches and athletes, however it should not be something that we just blindly accept as a part of the sport. Coaches play a significant role in preparing and training athletes for performance. Any coach knows that performance will likely be comprised when an athlete’s health is compromised through illness or injury. Therefore, coaches need to be paying closer attention to keeping their athletes healthy and injury free.

The overwhelming majority of athletics injuries occur attraining (Zemper, 2005), this makes sense because athletes spend the majority of their time training as opposed to competing. However, there is also an opportunity for the coach to intervene at training to modify training and to potentially avoid the injury occurring. Most athletes know their bodies inside and out and can feel when something isn’t quite right. Coaches need to be in constant communication with their athletes as well as observing them in order to identify any reason why training may need to be modified to prevent injury.

The most shocking statistic is that up to 96% of injuries in athletics are overuse (Jacobsson et al., 2013). We know that overuse injuries are a direct result of an accumulated load that outweighs rate of recovery. This very simply means that the training load is too high. It is the coach who is responsible for programming and therefore the training load.Therefore, if we are going to see a reduction in the prevalence of overuse injuries it has to be driven from the coach.

These statistics provide a snap shot of the current prevalence of injuries occurring in athletics. The coach can play a significant role in reducing the incidence of injuries. We know that in the long term an athlete who stays injury free will likely have the greatest long-term improvements in performance.One of the hardest roles of a coach is balancing the long-term benefits with the immediate/short term results. Coaches need to ask themselves this simple question: would you prefer to have athlete’s that are healthy and slightly under done or athletes that are over cooked and injured?

Most common areas of injury by event group

Running

Hamstring, Back, Thigh, Foot

Jumps

Thigh, Ankle, Hamstring, Knee

Throws

Ankle, Shoulder, Elbow, Back