Sports Injuries

[Siniri]

If you do any sport long enough, you're bound to get injured. I ran cross country in high school and dislocated my knee (grinding up the cartilage) midway through my first season. Since then, I've re-injured the same knee countless times and had two surgeries on it. (By the way, according to a study, girls cross country has the most injuries per 100 athletes of any high school sport -- mostly overuse injuries such as runner's knee, shin splints, stress fractures, and Achilles tendinitis, due to coaches having them run more than their growing bodies can handle. My team had >100 injuries/100 athletes; our back-to-back state championships came with a cost.)

Anyway, I'm bringing this up because I had an Irish stepdancing competition today, and one of my classmates broke her 5th metatarsal (aka "the dancer's bone") in her foot. I couldn't tell if she landed just a little off causing the bone to break or if the bone broke, causing her to land a little off. But I've never seen a competition where no one got injured. Slips often result in broken/sprained wrists or elbows (I strained my wrist once in a fall), and I sprained my ankle last year (you dance two at a time, and I was dancing in place at the left front of the stage when the other girl came barreling across and tried to land in the same spot as me -- I only realized we were going to collide mid-leap, and there was nothing either of us could do by that point. She got her foot down first, mine landed on hers, and then her other landed on mine, and down I went -- I also lost my big toe nail because I got a big bruise under it from her weight). I've also personally witnessed a breaking 5th metatarsal at least 6 times in 6 years of competing.

Which brings me long way around to my point. Although most sports are dangerous, some are more inherently dangerous than others, and they do put excessive strain on your body. How do you know when enough is enough? I've never broken a bone and would like to keep it that way, but I sense that if I keep dancing, it's eventually going to happen to me... (my feet definitely ache in weird places now after years of dancing). I'm not planning on quitting any time soon, but it just always stinks to watch your friends get injured.

[Katherine]

I find it's luck of the draw for me if I get hurt or not playing sports. I've never been hurt worse than a few strained or pulled muscles, and being dehydrated(yay!) and I've played lots of different sports (I've done running, soccer, softball, volleyball, tap and ballet, and basketball). I guess I'm just lucky.

[werepup]

Lol... I'm always getting injured... I'm injured right now (getting over a broken rib from judo) I've sprained my wrist and broke ribs when I fell from my horse, had concussion, broken ribs, shin splints and many mat burns from judo and wrestling and when I fought for Scotland in judo when I was younger, the girl I was fighting managed to sneakily boot my kneecap up, dislocating it.
I get shin splints if I run on concrete too much. Oh yeah, and who could forget (apart from me) the numerous times I've had concussion at the judo. Meh.

[Ski]

I'd been running all winter to stay in shape for track season, but this past week of practice I've been getting shin splints. Those are gone, thankfully. I've been lucky enough to not be seriously injured, and I can only pray that it continues.

[Miyu]

Yeah, injuries with sports is a given. Though, not for all of them.
I've done baseball, soccer, volleyball, and track & field - the most injuries I've seen were with track & field. Hardly any for volleyball. Soccer, can get uber brutal.

I've been lucky, the only injury I got from sports - was first year of high school track, first meet, first race - i somehow managed to pull a muscle on my side at a growth plate. So now I can make noises with my leg - of bones like knocking up against each other. Wooh. Haha.

[Raz]

I'm always getting studded in football, so my shins are always pretty messed up, but I don't like shinpads, but I've learnt to live with it.

[shapu]

I've broken all of my fingers playing american football. I was never on a team, but as a kid, growing up, we had lots of open fields and lots of low throws.

[Shoyru_Lover]

Youuuccch. I've had my share of sporting injuries.

Mmm... 12.5 stiches in hockey being hit with a stick... lost tooth on the hockey field... hitting the diving board a couple of times during springboard diving practices... broken wrist trying to do flips without using hands on athletics meets...

[ginny-ROX]

when I was 5 Me and my friends were messing about and playing and running then someone tripped me up and I fell foward and backwards at the same sort of time so I scraped my knee and when I looked at it I saw the entire piece of skin had been pulled off so you could see some weird purple flesh and the bones and stuff.

and of course I have had many others like a cut on my leg or a football (soccerball) in the stomach and once when I was in goals playing football (soccer) I wasn't looking because some one called me from the side and someone shot at that time and my hands were up in the air a bit and the football came flying towards me and hit my hand and it was bent right back so my knuckle was touching my wrist I even heard the bones snap.

[shapu]

Youuuccch. I've had my share of sporting injuries.

Mmm... 12.5 stiches in hockey being hit with a stick... lost tooth on the hockey field... hitting the diving board a couple of times during springboard diving practices... broken wrist trying to do flips without using hands on athletics meets...

Is hockey the same sport to commonwealthers as it is to americans? Or is this going to be like american football/football/soccer, or boxing/fighting/hooliganism?

[Lee]

I tore my medial meniscus and my ACL during softball. At the time I was on a team that practiced 6 days a week all year round. I disobeyed doctors orders and continued to play softball while in physical therapy. That summer during the tournament, I payed the price. While rounding third I tore my ACL and further damaged my meniscus. Surgery ensued now I'm fine! But I don't play anymore. After my recovery I realized just how much of my life softball dominated. I liked it, but never that much.

[shapu]

Worth noting:
The group of athletes that suffers the highest number of catastrophic knee injuries?

Cheerleaders!

[ginny-ROX]

Oh yes a couple of girls I really really hate are cheerleaders I hope they get hurt

[Plastic Ninja]

Oh in Taekwondo i've had migrains, pulled muscles ,allmost broken my big toe, there was the day i couldent breath and i've been dehydrated..... the lot.

and my freind broke his toe the first day of Taekwondo that he was there.

[shapu]

Oh yes a couple of girls I really really hate are cheerleaders I hope they get hurt

Without getting into a debate about how rotten those kids are, that's not particularly nice. Wouldn't it be better to just wish embarassment on them instead?

It's been a while, but I vaguely recall from my days in middle school and high school that being totally red-faced was a lot worse of a fear of mine than getting hurt.

(plus, people with casts tend to get sympathy, which i think would probably not be what you want).

On topic...

A coworker of mine was playing basketball just the other day and blew out his ACL. He can walk fine in a straight line, but has a hard time of turning corners.