Îœusculoskeletal Disorders among Greek National Gymnastics team

Tsekoura M., Billis E. ,Tsiringaki A. , Dimopoulou T. , Fousekis K., Tsepis E.

Background. Gymnastics, being one of the oldest Olympic sports,is technically difficult and physically highly demanding,requiring long hours of practice in explosive and complex movements. Gymnastics injuries are frequent particularly among advanced level female gymnasts. Today's gymnastic stunts require a high degree of skill in acrobatics, whole body strength and static as well as dynamic balance. The best way to identify possible risk factors and to suggest injury preventive measures is to determine injury rates. Physicians who treat gymnasts must be aware of the most common problems. Objectives: The aim of the present study was to investigate the prevalence of injury rates among professional elite gymnastic athletes in the Greek National team. Methods. A sample of 33 Greek elite competitive gymnasts were administered a questionnaire to collect personal and training data as well as information concerning the number, location, and type of musculoskeletal disorders sustained in the previous 12 months. All athletes were gymnastics in the Greek National team. Ethical approval was provided by the ethics committee of the School of Health and Welfare-Technological Educational Institute of Western Greece. Results. A total of 33 gymnasts (men: 16; women:17) with a median age 20.45 (range 11-40 years) years participated in the present cross-sectional study. 62% of elite reported at least one musculoskeletal injury during the last year. In total, 108 injuries were registered. The most common anatomic areas involved, were the ankles (60.2 %) followed by the shoulders (54.5%) and the wrists (54.5%). There were differences between genders regarding the main areas of pain and discomfort, with the ankles being more prevalent in women compared with men (11 cases vs 9 cases; p = 0.97), while men tended to complain mostly about pain in shoulders (15 vs 3 cases; p=0.8) and wrists (12 vs 6 cases; p=0.17). Conclusions. Gymnasts are high-performance athletes with high prevalence of injuries and disorders. Further research should investigate in depth the profile of musculoskeletal disorders in Greek elite gymnastics athletes and the effectiveness of focused prevention programmes.