The Importance Of Sports Injuries And Prevention
Sports specialists and physical education professionals highly recommend people to frequently practice sports or any physical exercise to increase the quality of life. However, often the intense practice of any physical activity can lead to health risks on rare occasions, causing injuries to the individuals who practice it. Therefore, it is necessary to follow some specific sports related guide and sports injury treatment to prevent the risk of suffering a sports injury.
Conceptualization of sports injury
Firstly, “injury” is the damage or physical detriment caused by a wound, a blow or an ailment. We can say that a sports injury is the damage that occurs in the human body as a result of sports practice. The meaning of sports injury would be the damage that occurs in a particular tissue as a result of sports practice or the performance of the physical exercise. Depending on the mechanism of injury and the onset of symptoms, sports injury treatment can be classified as acute or overuse.
Types of most frequent sports injuries
There are very different types of sports injuries according to the parameter we analyze. Such as the following:
- Muscular injuries: This type of injury is produced accidentally usually caused by external agents and can be: contusions and/or fractures.
- Contusion: It is a traumatism closed without skin breakage. It is produced by the collision of a body surface against an external agent acting by pressure causing a crush when the muscles are in tension. It affects the skin and subcutaneous tissue to bones according to the intensity of the trauma.
- Wound: A traumatic injury with breakage of skin produced by a blow or violent shock. There is a danger of infection. The wounds can be sharp, incised or bruised according to the agent that causes it.
- Indirect trauma injury: It is produced mainly by internal factors and may be: elongations and/or strains, jerk, tear, muscle breakdown.
- Elongation/distension: It is stretching in the muscle without breakage of muscle fibers or confined muscular anatomical lesions. It causes a diffuse pain in the whole muscle when asked for action.
- Pull: It is a lesion of a greater affectation than elongation, producing rupture of muscular fibrils, providing a small hematoma due to the rupture of vessels, localizing the pain in that specific area of the muscle.
- Muscle tear: It is the most severe muscle injury produced by the absence of synergism between the agonist and antagonist muscles. It can also appear via extreme contraction of the tissue. It creates a sudden pain that is accentuated when the muscle contracts and is relieved with inactive situation. The break can be partial if it only affects bundles or total muscle fibers if there is a separation between the muscle bundles.
What is sports injury treatment and prevention?
To prevent any sports injury, we must keep in mind several aspects such as what kind of following activity we are going to perform, what duration it will have or what intensity we will give it, among others. Moreover, with these data, we can act taking previous considerations and adjusting other factors continuously.
Factors and elements that influence prevention
All physical exercise, both based on physical performance and body recreation, is likely to cause a sports injury. The factors that affect prevention will contribute to improving both the quality of life in general and an improvement in kinesthetic sensations in sports practice. Some of the elements on which the prevention of injuries depends are:
- Possess a physical preparation appropriate to the type of activity to be performed.
- Perform adequate heating.
- Use suitable equipment (footwear, clothing, protectors, etc.)
- Control health with as frequent analysis and medical checks.
- Lead a healthy life (balanced diet, avoid harmful substances, rest, etc.).
- Cesar the physical activity before any symptom of pain or fatigue.
Among all the factors mentioned above, one of the most influential is the physical condition of the subject. It is shown that people with a low level are more likely to suffer some injury. It is essential that each athlete analyses the activity or sport that is going to be carried out taking the level of intensity and volume requested to properly plan the action, reducing the risk of injuries.
What to do to prevent injuries
Here are some tips to reduce the risk of sports injury as much as possible and in addition to the factors mentioned below:
- a) Environmental elements, physical space and the surface.
- b) Avoid bumps and incidents due to the condition of the pavement.
- c) Ambient temperature, avoiding maximum cold or heat.