Frequency Of Sports Injuries Depending On Gender, Age, Sports Experience, Nature Of Sports And Training Process

Authors

Bačanac Ljubica, Serbian Institute for Sport and Sport Medicine
Radović Mileva, Serbian Institute for Sport and Sport Medicine
Vesković Ana, Faculty of Sports and Physical Education, University of Belgrade

Abstract

The intention of this research was to determine whether the frequency of sports injuries could be related to gender, age, sports experience, nature of sport, and volume and intensity of training. The sample of 520 athletes divided in two sub-samples of young talented athletes was investigated, of both genders for 17 various sports events (N = 409), besides the sub-sample for the elite male athletes, members of the national team of Serbia and Montenegro (N = 111). Young athletes aged 12 to 18 ( = 15.18 ± 1.62) who had been involved in sport for at least two years ( = 5.07 ± 3.23) were surveyed during the summer camp in 2004. The sub-sample of elite athletes included soccer, volleyball, basketball and water polo players, of the average age of 22.35 ± 3.53 years and of sports experience of 11.42 ± 4.05 years, who within the regular check-up of functional abilities and psychological status were tested in the Republic Institution for Sport in Belgrade between 2000 and 2005. By analyzing the frequency of serious sports injuries with young athletes with regard to gender, sports experience, type of sport they play, we can conclude that: 1) More than 19% young athletes of both genders aged 12 to 18, and significantly greater percentage of adult elite athletes (34%) had a serious sports injury; 2) among young athletes with serious sports injuries it was the males who dominated, so they represented a group at a significantly greater risk form injury than the girls (22.4% : 14.7%); 3) tae kwon do, athletics and triathlon were the sports with the greatest percentage of injuries with men, while judo, shooting and handball were the sports in which girls were exposed to the greatest risk of experiencing serious sports injury. In the same way, in some sports such as synchronous swimming, fencing and weight lifting the risk of serious sports injuries was minimum or almost negligible; 4) there was no statistically significant correlation between the number and volume of daily and weekly training sessions with the frequency of sports injuries; 5) when we consider sports injuries with regard to the length of sports experience, we can see that susceptibility to sports injuries reduced with the increase of sports experience; 6) finally it should be stated that young athletes of Serbia spent a significant part of their free time in sports activities, training daily an average of 2.29 hours, and 5.77 times or 10.89 hours a week.

Keywords

sports injuries, young athletes, training

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References

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