Sports injuries: strength training prevents

All content is checked by medical journalists.

MunichAround 40 million German citizens do sport on a regular basis. As healthy as that is, the risk of injury increases for you. Every year around 1.5 million people are injured in sport in Germany. Danish researchers are now showing what exercises athletes can use to protect themselves from injuries and damage caused by excessive strain.

A team of sports physicians led by Jeppe Bo Lauersen from the Institute for Sports Medicine in Copenhagen analyzed the data from 25 studies with 26,610 participants who regularly played either football, handball or basketball.

The researchers wanted to find out how high the injury rate was among athletes who also did strength training, stretching, training to stabilize balance or a combination of light strength training and endurance sports. They compared the results with athletes who did not do any additional training.

Weight training most effective

The doctors documented a total of 3464 injuries. After analyzing the data, strength training ultimately proved to be the most effective method of protecting against sports injuries. The likelihood of injuries was 68 percent lower than those who had previously completed a prevention program. Balance training and combination training lowered the risk of injury by around 45 and 34 percent, respectively. Stretching had the comparatively least effect. It was only able to reduce the risk of sports injuries by around four percent.

Preventive training can also protect against overuse injuries such as tendinitis, bursitis or fatigue fractures: athletes who regularly completed such supplementary training suffered an average of 47 percent less overuse damage.

Sport as medicine

The positive effect of sport on health is undisputed: it strengthens bones, prevents cardiovascular diseases and diabetes and can even lighten the mood in the case of depression. (jb)

Source: Lauersen B. et al. The effectiveness of exercise interventions to prevent sports injuries: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. British Journal of Sports Medicine.

Tags:  laboratory values menshealth hair