TRAINING
How safe is our sport? Steve Bird
Participating in any sport, or indeed pretty much any activity conveys a risk of injury. For most sports this risk is slight, or at least it is for major or life threatening injuries. Whilst at the same time, minor injuries such as small scratches or bruises that convey no lasting harm, are virtually ignored and considered to be an inevitable part of participation. So what are the injury risks in Orienteering, and how do they compare against other sports? Sport specific injury profile Each sport has a characteristic injury profile that is attributable to the demands of that sport. Which is why, for example, Rugby League with its frequent and forceful collisions has a very different injury profile to marathon running, which by comparison has a high incidence of repetitive overuse injuries to the feet and legs.
Epidemiology The incidence of sports injuries can be expressed in a number of ways. For example, by simply stating the number of injuries that occur (injury incidence), but this does not take into account the fact that some sports are more popular than others in terms of the number of participants. Which means that the sport in which most injuries occurs, may not in fact be the one with the greatest relative risk to the individual. If, for example, it has a very high number of participants, but only a very small percentage of whom get injured, compared with a less popular sport, which has fewer participants, but a high percentage of which are injured. Additionally, when making these comparisons it may be desirable to factor in how often people participate, for example, just once a month, or five times a week. So when comparing the relative prevalence of sports injuries, expressions such as injuries per participation hours are sometimes used.
Traumatic vs Overuse Traumatic injuries are those that can be attributed to a specific incident, such as a fall or colliding with a branch. Whereas overuse injuries tend to come on insidiously, and are due to repetitive actions gradually causing damage. An example of these would be a sore achilles tendon caused by running too many kms. Incidentally, here of course there is considerable individual variation in what constitutes too many kms, as some people will have the physical capacity to do far more than others before they exceed the resilience of their body tissues.
Acute vs Chronic Injuries can also be broadly described as acute, if they’ve just occurred, or chronic if they persist. A chronic injury can be caused either by a traumatic event from which the damaged tissue fails to recover or, as indicated above, from repetitive overuse.
Orienteering injuries One of the classic studies on injuries in Orienteering looked at the Finnish Men’s (Jukola) and Women’s (Venla) Relays1. The
22 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER SEPTEMBER 2007
results of the study suggest an injury incidence of 2-3%, which equated to around 15 injuries per 1000 competition hours or 2.6 per 1000 km. These were mainly (70%) in the lower limbs and included minor blisters, scratches and abrasions. Of the more substantive injuries, ankle sprains were the most common, accounting for 25% of all injuries. This is a common finding amongst many similar studies, including that by Creagh and Reilly2 on elite female orienteers, 68% of whom reported having been injured, with ankle injuries again being the most common (43%) followed by knees (16%). Likewise Linde3 reported elite orienteers to suffer from an average of 1.7 injuries per year, 52% of which were acute and 48% overuse. And yet again, ankle sprains were the most common, comprising 37% of acute injuries, with most of the remainder being contusions caused by falls or bumps against branches or rocks. Not surprisingly, these mainly occurred during competition.
Comparison with other sports As indicated above, the ankle is the most commonly injured site in Orienteering, but how do these compare with other sports? In the study by Lian et al4, knee injuries, such as ‘Jumpers Knee’ were common in volleyball and basketball, with a prevalence of 44% and 32% of the participants respectively. This compared with no reported cases in Orienteering. Additionally, the study by Bahr et al5 indicated that the prevalence of lower back pain was no greater amongst orienteers than non-athletes.
Long term consequences A common claim amongst the non-sporting fraternity is that playing sport will increase your risk of arthritis. Well the evidence suggests that to some extent they are correct, but not entirely, and the good news is that Orienteering is not likely to increase your risk. Evidence for this comes from a study by Thelin et al.6 which was based in Sweden and showed that the increased risk of knee osteoarthritis was associated with a previous traumatic injury to the knee. Which is why participants in sports such as Soccer and Ice-Hockey, in which traumatic injuries are relatively common, have an elevated risk of later osteoarthritis. But in sports such as Orienteering and Track & field, where traumatic knee injuries were not so common, the risk of knee osteoarthritis, was no greater than that in the general non-sporting population. Likewise the study by Kujala7 et al. showed no increase in lower limb disability in older orienteers, compared with aged matched non-smoking, but non-athletic men. But, incidentally, they did report a greatly reduced risk of heart attacks amongst the orienteers, with the orienteers displaying only 1/7th of the prevalence of heart attacks compared with their less active compatriots.
Other health risks However whilst Orienteering conveys a relatively low injury risk, and considerable benefits to our general health, we should still take precautions against other health concerns such as tetanus, and when travelling abroad be aware of any local issues such as Lymes disease, which is carried by ticks, and is not uncommon in certain parts of Europe (particularly Eastern Europe).
Reducing risk of injury Four key factors that could reduce your risk of injury: • Wear protective clothing – glasses, gaiters, and ankle braces if you’re vulnerable to sprains; • Undertake appropriate training loads – to prevent overuse injuries; • Medical precautions – anti-tetanus injections; • Warm up – a likely benefit but unproven.
