Common Sports Injuries – Treatment and Prevention

Whether you take up sports as a career or a mere exercise, injuries could occur in the course of sporting events. Sport is a way of life to some people who earn their living by it, and it is merely an exercise to others who engage in it to improve their health and wellbeing.

The bottom line to any physical exercise is injury, and this could emanate from poor training practices, wrong equipment, wrong sporting techniques, and simple accidents. Sometimes people who are not properly conditioned for certain sports can suffer injuries from it, and lack of proper warm-up exercise before engaging in sporting activities can also cause preventive injuries.

The following are common sports injuries –

• Shin splints: This injury is common to athletes who run hard on hard surfaces and those who are not properly warmed up before engaging in sporting activities. Shin splints occur when the shin suffers a blow causing considerable injury to the tibia joints where bones attach to muscles in the leg.

• Knee injuries: Knee injury is sometimes referred to as runner’s knee, but it actually goes more than this. Orthopaedic surgeons see more of knee injuries in sportsmen than other types of sporting injuries, and this is largely because the legs and knees and ankles absorb much of the shocks of physical exertions brought about by sports.

• Strains and sprains: This is also called a pulled muscle, and it occurs when a ligament gets too overstretched or tears during rigorous exercises or sporting events. A ligament is the tissue that joins one bone to the other, and a torn or overstretched tendon can occur in the knee, ankle, or wrist.

• Fractures: A fracture occurs when a sportsman breaks a bone in his legs or arms as a direct of rigorous sporting activity. Some fractures occur over time when a particular part of the leg or arm suffers repeated stress, and sometimes a bone could just break suddenly on strong impacts without early signs. Footballers, pole vaulters, and athletes suffer fractures much more than others.

• Dislocations: This occurs when a strong impact forces a bone or joint out of alignment. Also known as luxation, dislocation occurs more in the shoulder and joints than others. When a bone is dislocated, it can be pushed back into place but not always without some damaged surrounding muscles which might need medical attention to heal. In many cases, a dislocation is often a medical emergency and must be treated as such.

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