Why is it that some girls get injured more than other?

[momof5]

Friend of DD at gym has another injury. She has been having elbow pain for quite some time. Anyway it seems to me after watching the girls in DD's gym for a number of years that certain girls get more injuries(combination of accident and overuse) than other girls who seem to not have any problems. A couple of girls seem to have one injury after another. Why is this? Any reason for this or just luck of the draw?

 

[gymmomntc2e6]

i think it can be either. my DD is currently injured, sprained elbow. She has had a sprained ankle & a fractured growth plate in her wrist. All have been freak things that happened doing things she had been doing for quite a while.

 

[flipper's fan]

Lots of reasons...biology...psychology...nutrition...condition...freaky things

I think psychology gets overlooked a lot because it is so complicated yet fascinating and freaky things get overused because it's easy to blame "fate."

And by psychology I don't mean the injury isn't real, I mean the cause of frequent injury due to psychological reasons like self confidence, self awareness, self esteem, negative thinking, trust issues, neediness.

 

[bogwoppit]

Gosh I wish I had the answer to this one. The list of injuries my oldest DD has had in the gym is endless, well it ended with spinal fusion surgery to be exact.

Genetics perhaps, body physiology, poor conditioning? Four people in her immediate family have had spine surgery, perhaps the failure was on my part to expect it.

But at the same time the other girls that she consistently trained with for years remain relatively (in gym terms) unscathed.

It is very tough mentally to feel that you are constantly injured. My DD still deals with that feeling of being broken constantly.

 

[All Chalked Up]

One that I see with the very talented/has potential pre-teamers in our gym is too much, too fast.

 

[gymgurl]

I think its mainly genetics and body type

 

[Kiwi]

I believe it can be due to structural/muscle imbalances that people may be unaware of. I believe this is the likely root cause of my DD's hamstring injury, which we are now working on with a neuro-muscular therapist. These structural issues may be partly genetic, but some things can be corrected or improved upon with the right kind of exercises. I also wonder if training for core stability and proprioception is somewhat overlooked (in favour of a lot of strength conditioning) and these could also be factors in some injuries. The psychological aspect mentioned is also interesting. Both lack of confidence and overconfidence can result in injuries. A girl at our gym recently broke her arm just swinging off the low bar and landing wrong - she wasn't meant to be doing that and was kind of messing around.

 

[sally]

We use to have a saying that we used when I played tennis and that was, the one that stayed injury free were the ones that made it. Chances are if you are training a lot of hrs there is a good chance of injury.

Also I agree with Nikki, my dd had a sore back so I took her to a physio and we have found out that she is way to flexible in her back so instead of using arms first she will use her back. Lucky we have found the problem early and now we can attend to the problem so highly unlikely that she will get back problems now, if we hadn't found out there could have been serious problems later.

 

[Granny Smith]

At my dd's gym, if there is injury after injury after injury, the first thing the coach seems to recommend is getting the child's vitamin D level checked. Gymnastics is an inside sport and at the higher levels requires many hours - not all of these gymnast get enough sunlight and have lower vitamin D levels and that can lead to cosntant injuries.

Another place to look is food, what is the child eating, is he/she eating properly, if not that too can lead to constant injury.

My dd has been involved in gymnastics for 10+ years and is training level 10, she has had 2 major injuries during this career. She broke her foot 1.5 yrs ago, which was a fluke injury and then just this past June she had her elbow operated on for removal of bone chips. This injury we are not sure what really caused it, over-use, a blow to the elbow at sometime or probably a combination of both. I think overall she isn't doing that bad on the injury scale.

 

[ThreeGirlsForMe]

At my dd's gym, if there is injury after injury after injury, the first thing the coach seems to recommend is getting the child's vitamin D level checked. Gymnastics is an inside sport and at the higher levels requires many hours - not all of these gymnast get enough sunlight and have lower vitamin D levels and that can lead to cosntant injuries.

Another place to look is food, what is the child eating, is he/she eating properly, if not that too can lead to constant injury.

My dd has been involved in gymnastics for 10+ years and is training level 10, she has had 2 major injuries during this career. She broke her foot 1.5 yrs ago, which was a fluke injury and then just this past June she had her elbow operated on for removal of bone chips. This injury we are not sure what really caused it, over-use, a blow to the elbow at sometime or probably a combination of both. I think overall she isn't doing that bad on the injury scale.

I had no idea about the vitamin D. That is something so simple to adjust. I'll have to check for the research on that as it would be an easy preventative measure to take.

 

[gym monkeys mom]

All very interesting thoughts. I do think gentetics, diet , conditioning and yes the mental aspect of it all play a part.

We also can't over look too many hours too young. Some gymnasts are very good very early and not all gyms are accustomed to training this type of athlete. A high level athlete needs to train for the marathon and not a quick sprint......

Just a few thoughts.....

 

[Bajanswife]

There's one girl at the gym who has grown taller but hasn't filled out much yet (i.e. she's quite thin). The Level 4 training has been a problem for her this past year - lots of injuries (not bad ones, but enough to send her to a doctor and make her have to keep taking breaks from gym for a few weeks at a time). I think she just doesn't have the muscle support for her joints. But one of our injury-prone Level 7 gymnasts has what seems to be excellent muscle tone - but her mother did tell us that she's a klutz and totally accident prone even outside the gym! So from my very imperfect sample of 2, there are different reasons why certain girls attract injuries more than others.

 

[Deleted member D3987]

biology. and that gymnastics does not discriminate. gymnastics says "i am going to chew you up and spit you out no matter who you are". lol.

 

[coachmolly]

I was pretty injured as a gymnast, mostly just nagging aches and pain type things that only required rest/conditioning, but also one very severe injury that landed me in the hospital for 2 weeks. According to the doctors who saw me for that injury, and had access to about a million x-rays and diagnostic reports, my body was just not built for gymnastics. It was nothing I or my coaches had done or not done, but the way my body was built could just not withstand the muscle growth associated with high level gymnastics.

 

[gymgurl]

Ok, I was very rushed when posting earlier so will elaborate a bit now.

I definitely think it is genetics as we have two sisters in our squad and they are both plagued with injuries, one fractured her back and the other had an some infection in the bone caused by sprinting and gym as they are both high impact sports and also had a shoulder injury short after coming back from her back injury. The one with the fractured back also has osgood schlatters and problems with one of her achilles.

Also, The only slip up i have had is a minor problem with my back and it happens to be exactly the same as my mums back. Unfortunately for me, that means i am going to have a lifetime of back problems judging my my mother's problems.

Of course other things come into it like luck (or be it bad luck) but the chances of someone having unlucky accidents regularly is pretty small.

Also it seems that the extremely flexible and the unflexible seem to be plagued with the most injuries. Just an observation.