Sports injuries are things that can really affect many people. It is important for us to maintain our health. Exercise could help us reduce stress, strengthen our body, as well as providing us with so many other benefits. However, regular exercise could result in injuries. This could happen when we are being overzealous about specific exercise regimen. We also don’t use adequate safety equipments. There are specific areas of our body that can be vulnerable to injuries, such as spine, elbows, shoulders, knees and ankles. We should avoid being injured, because serious injuries could actually incapacitate us for weeks or months.
Sprains and strains are mild injuries that are associated with sports. However, more serious sprains could actually be associated with joints dislocation and even minor fractures. Ligaments, tendons and muscles could also be affected by various injuries. We should know that muscles are attached to the bones with tendons. On the other hands, bones are attached to one another with ligaments. Overextension and twisting could cause muscle tears. Ligament tears are known as sprains. This condition could be considered as mild, moderate or severe. In mild sprains, some fibers can be stretched or torn. With severe injuries, the tear could happen through the entire thickness of the structure.
More serious injuries can be considered as the most unstable and surgical intervention could be required. There are different ligaments in our body. As an example, the intervetebral disc is known as a shock absorber. When it is torn, herniation or disc bulge could happen. When athletes suffer from ankle sprains, tears could happen on ligaments outside our ankles. Knee ligaments can be easily torn during multiple high intensity activities. On the back of our knee cap or patella, there’s a cartilage. It could be eroded due to overuse. This condition is known as chondromalacia patella. Tendinosis happens when we train too much. Any overuse of our tendon could cause dysfunction and pain.
It is important for us to quickly deal with any kind of overuse syndrome. Repetitive uses could cause multiple inflammations in different parts of our body. In general, athletes should closely listen to their body. When there’s unusual pain and discomfort, this could be caused by excessive use of different parts in our body. As an example, tennis elbow can be identified as a variant of tendonitis and it happens outside of our elbow. This condition is common among tennis players who repeatedly swing the arms. Frequent golfers could have the inside of their elbow eroded and this causes another form of tendonitis.
Fractures could also happen to some athletes and this is known as stress fracture. This type of fracture could happen when we place an excessive amount of stress at only a specific bone. This could happen when athletes are training for marathon, long-distance cycling or other endurance sports. Fatigue fracture can be prevented by not overdoing things from the start. It is a good idea to make gradual progress before covering a very long distance.
