Sports injuries are injuries that typically occur while participating in organized sports, competitions, training sessions, or organized fitness activities. These injuries may occur in teens for a variety of reasons, including improper training, lack of appropriate footwear or safety equipment, and rapid growth during puberty. Often overuse injuries seem less important than acute injuries. You may be tempted to ignore that aching in your wrist or that soreness in your knees, but always remember that just because an injury isn’t dramatic doesn’t mean it’s unimportant or will go away on its own. If left untreated, a chronic injury will probably get worse over time. Learn more about pulled muscles and the ways to treating muscle pull.
Category Archives: Other Sports Injuries
Hamstring Injury – " Common Sports Injuries "
This video discusses the Hamstring Injury or a pulled hamstring, one of the common sports injuries and leg injuries. The hamstring injury is a strain or a tear to the back of the upper leg muscles. Difficulty of squatting and sitting are common symptoms. Treatment includes rest and strengthening the hip and trunk. Click this link to know what are the treatments of pulled muscles.
Clavicle Fracture (Collar bone) – " Common Sports Injuries "
This video discusses the Clavicle Fracture or the broken collar bone, one of the common sports injuries. A clavicle fracture or a broken collar bone is one of the common shoulder injuries and is caused by landing directly on the shoulder. Surgery is required if the bone is displaced. Rehab is difficult because it involves strengthening the entire shoulder. Learn more about how do muscle pulls heal.
Sprained Wrist – " Common Sports Injuries "
This video discusses a sprained wrist, one of the common sports injuries. The sprained wrist is a tear of the ligaments around the wrist. Symptoms include wrist pain, swelling, and immobility. Treatment includes icing, rest, and taping. Learn more about how to prevent different muscle pull.
Understanding Hip Pain (Sports Injuries #1)
This video discusses the common injury of the hip. The most common of over use injuries is also called stain. Strain can occur in any of the hip muscles and range from mile over stress to a torn muscle. Hip is an intricate joint able to hold the weight of the body and support the full range of motion. That is why our hip are prone to injury. One of the injuries involved are hamstring strain , hip flexor strain, and hip bursitis. Learn more how to treat hip flexor injury.
Achilles Tendonitis
According to a well-known Greek myth, the god Achilles was impervious to the arrows of his enemies—except for his heel, which proved to be his downfall. This part of the anatomy can also prove to be a problem for athletes who participate in sports that demand a lot of jumping, starting and stopping, such as tennis, basketball or running up and down hills.
That’s because increasing this kind of activity too quickly, or doing too much, can lead to Achilles tendinitis, also commonly known as Achilles heel. Your Achilles tendon attaches the muscles that run down the back of your calf to your heel bone, and it can acquire small tears that inflame the tendon.
Achilles tendinitis can cause dull pain, swelling and stiffness in the heel, which may seem to feel better immediately after you start moving, but then worsen again as you continue the activity such as running or jumping.
Basic at-home remedies, such as rest, compressing the heel and taking anti-inflammatory medication such as ibuprofen, help Achilles tendinitis heal in the majority of cases.
But if the tendinitis isn’t going away, if your heel makes a crackling noise when you touch it, or if you can’t bend your foot towards the ground, you may have ruptured the tendon, and you should see your doctor immediately. He or she will examine your foot and may use magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI, to evaluate whether your heel pain could stem from another injury.
If you do have Achilles tendonitis, your doctor may suggest you add extra support to your shoes, since the condition also can result from over-pronation, in which the feet have flat arches. You may also need to use crutches or a supportive boot to take pressure off of the heel. In the most extreme cases, surgery might be needed to snip off the enflamed tissue surrounding the tendon.
To prevent a recurrence of Achilles tendonitis, make sure you increase your activity level gradually, and that you stretch the tendon and your calf muscles regularly to keep them pliable. Using these tips, Achilles’ downfall doesn’t have to be yours.
Concussion
Your brain is a delicate organ; luckily, the fluid between the brain and the bony skull usually provides plenty of cushioning. If you hit your head very hard, however, your brain can shake inside of your skull, potentially causing serious problems with brain function. Sports that can boost your risk of a concussion include those that potentially involve collisions, such as snowboarding, boxing, hockey, soccer, football, biking and skiing.
Symptoms of a concussion can vary, and if you think you or a friend, family member or teammate may have suffered from a concussion, it’s important to visit a physician as soon as possible, since an untreated concussion can have symptoms that persist for months, and can even cause permanent brain damage. Common symptoms include losing consciousness after the head injury; feeling drowsy; and being unable to recall what happened around the time of the injury. Signs of a concussion that may require emergency treatment include becoming disoriented or confused; having pupils that are unequally dilated; vomiting; muscle weakness; and trouble walking. Because concussions can involve the head and spine, take care when moving someone who may have had a concussion.
Treatment varies depending on the severity of the concussion. For children and young adults, a concussion that causes loss of consciousness generally means the athlete will have to wait at least three months to resume practice. A trained health professional can evaluate when it is safe to return to training. Sufficient rest is crucial before returning to play to prevent potentially serious complications that can arise if a concussion does not heal fully, or if the athlete suffers from another brain injury.
To prevent a concussion, be sure to wear adequate protective gear, such as a helmet, when participating in high-risk sports such as biking or skateboarding.
Abdominal Strain
Weight lifting, or even just lifting a heavy object using improper form, can cause an injury to the abdominal muscles that is known as an abdominal strain. This injury usually affects the front abdominal muscles, but can also cause pain in the muscles on the side of your abdomen, known as the oblique muscles. Football players and weight lifters are at the highest risk of this injury.
The first symptom of an abdominal strain is pain. You likely will find it very painful to do crunches or touch your toes, and you may experience muscle spasms in your abdomen. Severe abdominal strains also can cause swelling and bruising of the affected muscle.
If you think you may have strained your abdomen, the first line of treatment is icing the area, taking anti-inflammatory medication such as ibuprofen to decrease swelling, getting plenty of rest, and possibly stretching the area gently if this does not cause pain. If your pain persists, consult a physician to find out how you can better help your injury heal. In some cases, surgery is necessary to repair torn tissue, and steroid injections also are sometimes employed to facilitate healing.
It can take anywhere from weeks to months for an abdominal strain to completely heal; recovery time varies based on the severity of the injury along with your body’s response to treatments. Once you think your abdominal muscles have healed, use caution when returning to your training. First make sure you complete simple tasks such as doing crunches or touching your toes; this will provide a good indication of whether you have completely healed. Jumping back into training before the muscles have completely healed is dangerous; it can lead to another abdominal strain–perhaps one even more serious than the first one.
When you return to training, start slowly. Keep your core muscles–your abdominal and back muscles–strong by doing exercises such as crunches and working on an inflatable exercise ball. The stability that a strong core provides can help prevent future abdominal strains.
Rib Fracture
Contact sports such as football and rugby increase the risk of getting hit with a ball or colliding with another player. When this happens, an injury known as a rib fracture can occur. After the impact, if you have a rib fracture you likely will experience pain and swelling, especially when you breathe in. Your ribs might also feel tender to the touch. If the pain is severe, you should head to the hospital to make sure that the fractured rib hasn’t punctured your lung or any other organs. That’s because if a rib fracture is left untreated, it can lead to internal bleeding, lung collapse, respiratory failure and pneumonia.
If hospital treatment is not necessary, pain medication can help control the pain so you can breathe normally. Fractures that require treatment in a hospital can cause so much pain that narcotics are necessary. Surgical rib fracture repair is rarely necessary but may be employed if the rib fails to heal on its own. You may experience severe pain for weeks, and low-level pain can persist for months.
Once your rib has healed, physical therapy or rehabilitation might be necessary to regain the ability to return to normal activity levels. It’s recommended that athletes wait at least four to six weeks before returning to training to ensure the rib has fully healed.
Glenoid Labrum Tear
Your shoulder’s joint socket is surrounded by a structure called the labrum; this ring of cartilage supports the joint. Falling on your arm or using the joint repetitively in sports that require lots of throwing, such as softball and baseball, can partially or completely tear this tissue. This condition is known as a glenoid labrum tear.
Symptoms of this condition commonly include a decreased range of motion in the arm, a feeling of instability in the shoulder joint, pain when you raise the arm above shoulder level, and the sensation of grinding or popping when you move the arm.
If you think you have torn your glenoid labrum, consult a sports medicine specialist. He or she can diagnose you using X-rays (to rule out any other possible causes of your pain) and by doing a physical examination.
If you do have a glenoid labrum tear, your physician likely will direct you to take anti-inflammatory pain medication, such as ibuprofen, to cut down on swelling and dull the pain. He or she might also recommend physical rehabilitation exercises to help your shoulder heal. If these measures don’t take care of your glenoid labrum tear, surgery may be necessary to remove or repair flaps of torn cartilage around your shoulder joint. Wires or tacks may also be necessary to stabilize a heavily damaged joint. You also will have to immobilize the affected arm in a sling for three or four weeks after the surgery to let it heal.
At this point, you can begin rehabilitation exercises to strengthen the shoulder and bicep muscle, and although it takes three or four months for the shoulder to completely heal, you can begin some easy training specific to your sport six weeks after surgery. Starting slowly and increasing training gradually can help you avoid re-injuring yourself.