Conventional wisdom is that NCAA female gymnasts are amongst the world’s most injured athletes.
… I once read an article claiming that only professional bull-riding produces more major injuries than gymnastics. While I don’t know if that is really true, I feel fairly comfortable saying that gymnastics is the most injury-prone of all non-contact/non-collision sports. …
GemGemz.com: Injuries common in gymnastics – focusing on NCAA Women’s Gymnastics
Professor Keith Russell from the University of Saskatchewan has tracked the research for decades. He often presents on the topic of injury prevention at FIG Academy events.
And Keith Russell agrees. Female gymnasts are close to NCAA male football players in terms of injury rate. It’s a very high risk sport.
Recently I posed to Keith the possibility that College injury statistics might be skewed. Last season after winning Championships, many of the Georgia girls were booked for surgery. That surprised me as they looked “perfect” during the competition. I speculated that whole teams are block booked for surgery immediately after the last competition of the year in preparation for the following season.
Am I right?
Much is minor surgery that a club based gymnast would not undergo. Club kids would “heal naturally” from such “injuries” as sore ankles at the end of the season.
But College programs have a lot of money invested in their teams. And access to the best sports medicine facilities.
Leave a comment if you think my theory is crazy. That College gymnasts really are more injured than club gymnasts as the statistics seem to indicate.
4 comments ↓
I would probably agree with the statictics. However, we need to keep in mind that by the time the girls get to college they have been participating at a high level for many years, probably have a number of longer term overuse injuries, train less, do the same skills, most have gained weight, gone on the pill etc. etc. I think we should expect some cause and effect. However I also agree with your points that the college kids are probably going in for medical treatments that club kids would probably not.
As a collegiate gymnast, I definately agree with these stats and statements. I have seen not only female college gymnasts with high rates of injury, but also male college gymnasts. In general, gymnasts have the capability to ignore injury and “fight through” the season… We ignore the pain so that we can contribute to our team. Then, after the long season, we go see doctors to fix major AND minor injuries before next season. I have never heard of entire teams going scheduling appointments, but I also only go to a DIII school, so DI schools may be doing this.
I, myself competed half of the season last year with 2 fractures in my back. Although it hurt extremely bad, I did not go to the Athletic Trainers (because I knew I would be taken out of meets – this is the mentality of many if not ALL of my team). After the season ended, I went to the doctor and found that my L5 was fractured in 2 places, and the doctor was extremely surprised that I continued to compete with it.
Gymnasts in general, I believe, are very tough when it comes to injuries, and they often want nothing but to contribute to their team and continue gymnastics. Athletic Trainers must take athletes out of competition for liability purposes, and many college kids know this. We also understand that these last college years are most likely our final years in our sport. I know that my mentality is to finish my last year in gymnastics and live through any injury as much as possible, then heal myself when I retire. I know a lot of college athletes that have this same idea, and I think this really contributes to higher injury rates in NCAA gymnastics
JJ, I am sorry to hear that some athletes are not reporting injuries in order to stay in the line-up.
I was hoping most teams would be deep enough to replace injured gymnasts when needed.
That’s bad news.
As a coach myself, I don’t want my gymnasts competing if injured.
I definately agree with that as a coach, but being on the other end, lol, I just feel like I need to accomplish something for myself and the team my last year.
It’s sad, but I do know of many athletes in the NCAA that don’t report injuries… not even just gymnasts
In general, I think the teams are deep enough, it’s just the individual gymnast that doesn’t want to be taken out of line-up.
And if anything, our coaches push us to see the athletic trainers, and we tell them that we’re alright… so they handle injury in a much smarter way than we do
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