Injury Prevention for Athletes

96 flashcards by MentisLibrary

How sports injuries actually happen and what reduces them: training load and progression, warm-up programs with trial evidence, strength and balance work, the common injuries by site, first response, recovery, and the red flags that need a clinician.

What is the difference between an acute injury and an overuse injury?
An acute injury happens in a single identifiable moment, such as an ankle sprain. An overuse injury develops as repeated load exceeds the tissue's capacity to repair.
What does training load actually include?
Volume, intensity, frequency, surface, footwear, technical difficulty, and everything outside sport such as work, travel and stress.
What is the acute to chronic workload ratio?
A comparison of recent training load, usually about a week, with the longer-term average, usually about four weeks, used to flag sudden spikes.
Why does a sudden spike in training load raise injury risk?
Tissues adapt to load over weeks. When load rises faster than the tissue can remodel, damage accumulates faster than repair.
Do different tissues adapt at the same rate?
No. Muscle and the cardiovascular system adapt relatively quickly, while tendon and bone remodel more slowly.
What is a deload week?
A planned week of reduced training volume, often every third or fourth week, so adaptation and repair can catch up.
What is session RPE and how is it used?
Rating the whole session's effort from 1 to 10 and multiplying by the duration in minutes to give a single load number.
What is the difference between functional overreaching and overtraining syndrome?
Functional overreaching is short-term fatigue that improves performance after recovery. Overtraining syndrome is a prolonged decline needing weeks or months to resolve.
How should an athlete return to training after time off?
Restart below the level at which they stopped and rebuild over a period roughly proportional to the length of the break.
Why is preseason a high risk period?
Load rises sharply from an off-season baseline, often with new movement demands and competitive intensity from the first week.
How does travel affect injury risk?
It disrupts sleep, hydration, nutrition and training rhythm, and long periods of sitting reduce readiness for immediate hard work.
Why does prior injury predict future injury?
A previous injury is consistently one of the strongest risk factors, reflecting incomplete rehabilitation, altered movement and remaining strength deficits.
What is the purpose of a warm-up?
To raise muscle and core temperature, increase blood flow, rehearse the movements of the session, and prepare the nervous system for fast, forceful work.
What is the RAMP model of warming up?
Raise the body temperature, Activate and Mobilize the relevant muscles and joints, then Potentiate with progressively harder sport-specific efforts.
What does the FIFA 11 plus warm-up program contain?
A structured warm-up of running exercises, strength, plyometric and balance work including the Nordic hamstring exercise, and running with cutting and landing.
Does a warm-up need to be sport-specific?
Yes at the end. General raising work is interchangeable, but the final part should rehearse the actual demands, such as cutting, sprinting, jumping or overhead throwing.
Should static stretching be part of a pre-training warm-up?
Long static holds can briefly reduce force and power output, so dynamic movement is generally preferred before training, with static work saved for after or for separate sessions.
Does stretching prevent injury?
Trials of stretching alone have not shown a clear reduction in injury rates. Strength training programs show much better evidence.
Why should players re-warm up after a long break in play?
Muscle temperature falls during a half-time interval or a long substitute wait, and injury rates rise in the minutes after restart.
What does a cool-down actually do?
It provides a gradual return from high intensity and a chance for easy movement. Evidence that it prevents soreness or injury is weak.
What is the general evidence for strength training and injury prevention?
Meta-analysis of controlled trials has found that strength training programs substantially reduce both overuse and acute injuries.
What is the Nordic hamstring exercise?
A partner or anchor holds the ankles while the athlete kneels and lowers the torso forward slowly, resisting with the hamstrings.
What is the Copenhagen adduction exercise?
A side plank with the top leg supported on a partner or bench, raising and lowering the bottom leg to load the adductors.
Why is calf and Achilles capacity worth measuring?
The calf complex absorbs and returns large loads in every running step, and low calf endurance is common in runners with Achilles and shin problems.
How does balance training reduce ankle sprain risk?
It trains the neuromuscular control that positions and stabilizes the ankle during landing and cutting, which is impaired after a previous sprain.
What is proprioception in an injury prevention context?
The sense of joint position and movement, supplied by receptors in muscle, tendon, joint capsule and skin.
What is eccentric strength and why does it matter for injury?
Strength while a muscle lengthens under load. Many strains happen during rapid lengthening, such as the late swing phase of sprinting.
How do neuromuscular training programs reduce knee injuries?
They combine plyometrics, strength, balance and landing technique, and trials in young athletes, particularly female athletes, show reduced anterior cruciate ligament injury rates.
What does good landing technique look like?
Landing with hips and knees flexing to absorb force, knees tracking over the feet, trunk upright, and a quiet foot contact.
How should plyometric training be progressed?
From low-intensity bilateral hops to higher-intensity single-leg and reactive jumps, with low volume, full recovery and quality landings.