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July 23rd, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda MONDAY, July 23 (HealthDay News) — Levels of pre-season fitness do not
predict how quickly college athletes may be injured during the season, but
their gender and the type of sport they play do, a new study
indicates.
Canadian researchers assessed pre-season fitness among athletes on six
varsity teams and found that women had a shorter time to injury than men.
Certain sports, such as volleyball, also had a much shorter time to injury
than other sports, including hockey and basketball.
The pre-participation fitness tests given to the athletes in the study
included a vertical jump test to assess anaerobic power, and measurements
of lower body strength, lower back and hip flexibility, agility, upper
body strength, core strength and flexibility, and shoulder
flexibility.
More than two-thirds of the athletes suffered an injury during their
seasons, with muscle or tendon strains in the legs or feet being most
common. While 55 percent of the athletes missed at least one practice due
to injury, most did not miss any games. About 40 percent of the injuries
occurred during pre-season practice, the study found.
On average, female athletes suffered their first injury about 40
percent of the way through the season, compared with 66 percent of the way
through the season for male athletes, the University of Alberta
researchers reported.
Injuries occurred sooner in volleyball than in any other sport — less
than 20 percent of the way through the season for women and 35 percent of
the way through the season for men.
The safest sport was men’s hockey, according to the findings, with
first injuries occurring an average of three-quarters of the way through
the season.
Pre-season fitness had no overall effect on athletes’ time to injury
during their season, concluded the study published online in the journal
Sports Medicine, Arthroscopy, Rehabilitation, Therapy
Technology.
“The only association we found between pre-season fitness and injury
was that [having less] upper body strength, as evaluated by push-ups, was
associated with a shorter time to injury — this was despite most of the
injuries being associated with the lower body,” researcher Michael Kennedy
said in a journal news release.
“Our study attempted to answer the question whether fitter athletes are
more resilient to injury than less fit athletes,” he continued. “We know
from our data that differences exist between risk of injury in pre-season
training, regular season training and actual games. However, most
importantly, our data clearly show that time to first injury for athletes
is more heavily influenced by gender and sport than pre-season
fitness.”
More information
The U.S. National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin
Diseases has more about sports injuries.
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