Carson Hidy

Joyce Barnes

English 1201

3 November 2019

Injury Rates in Gymnastics

Imagine yourself breaking your wrist while writing your name. It is something you have

done thousands of times, and it has become simple for you. So, how could that even happen?

This is a struggle for a lot of gymnasts as they face career ending injuries while doing a skill they

have practiced their whole life. The injury rate in gymnastics is so high because of the increase in

difficulty of the sport without increase in safety precautions.

Gymnastics is easily one of the most difficult sports out there. With the high level of

difficulty comes a high risk factor for injuries. In Brooke Arrington’s article “Gymnastics Injury

Rate Rivals that of Contact Sports”, the author compares gymnastics to contact sports,

specifically hockey, soccer, and basketball. She writes, “According to Elsevier Global Medical

News, an average of 4.8 injuries per 1,000 gymnasts occur each year.”(Arrington) This number

is not enough to scare most people, but when you consider the amount of people that do

gymnastics, the amount of people that are being injured is exponentially higher. This rate is also

up there with the three contact sports mentioned previously. High injury rates in contact sports

make sense due to the fact that players frequently hit each other. Since gymnastics is an

individual sport, the injury rate being so high is concerning because other individual sports have

significantly lower injury rates.

One potential reason for the rate being so high is the fact that many gymnasts do not

allow minor injuries to heal completely before returning to practice. Arrington uses this example,

“Olympian Kerri Strug completed a vault during the Atlanta 1996 Summer Olympics on a third-

degree sprain. She landed on one foot to capture the gold medal for the United
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States.”(Arrington) This specific athlete was competing in the Olympics, which is clearly the

most difficult that the sport gets. However, even most gymnasts in high school and college suffer

minor injuries, like sprains, that typically require at least three weeks of rest in order to heal

properly. Most gymnasts in this situation will maybe take a few days off, then come back to

practice to condition. Skipping three weeks of practice may not be a big deal in most sports, but

in gymnastics it would very likely be a huge setback to their progress.

Another reason the high injury rate is shocking is the fact that gymnasts are taught to fall

in a safe way. When learning high difficulty skills, there are specific safety drills these athletes

learn in order to protect them if they do the skill wrong. In Arrington’s interview with a gymnast

competing for her college, she writes that, “Rollins explained falls are a routine part of learning a

new skill, so by the time the gymnast has learned the skill, falling isn’t a fear.”(Arrington) This

is partially to make skills less scary to the athlete as well as to make sure if they are scared and

bail out they know how to fall without severely injuring themselves. One of the most common

injuries during a fall is when an athlete puts their arms behind them in an attempt to catch

themselves but ends up breaking one, if not both, of their arms. So, gymnasts are taught to put

their arms by their ears or crossed in front of them and tuck their legs in so they roll instead. This

technique arguably avoids lots of injuries, but the rate is still just as high as contact sports.

The article “Balancing the Risk of Injury to Gymnasts: How Effective are the Counter

Measures?” by R.M. Daly, S. L. Bass, and C. F. Finch goes into more detail about the injury

prevention in gymnastics. The article talks about how athletes, coaches, parents, and health

professionals need to make an effort to keep gymnastics safe. The authors break up injury

prevention into three categories, pre-event, event, and post-event, with the event being an injury.

Pre-event counter measures include the following: properly warming up, being in good physical
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health, enough safe equipment, correcting risks, spotters, and proper education. These things are

all very important to do the most to prevent any serious injuries from occurring, and if one or

more of these things is missing or done incorrectly, the injury risk rises. Counter measures taken

when an injury occurs or during practice include: equipment maintenance and protective

equipment. The equipment being used needs to be in good shape because if it breaks while being

used an injury is almost guaranteed to happen. When learning certain skills, gymnasts will wear

protective gear to keep themselves safe. For example, gymnasts will wear pads on their heels

when learning certain release moves on bars. The purpose of these pads is to protect their bones

if they hit the bar with their feet. Measures taken after an injury include: immediate first aid,

physical therapy, and rehab. Making sure that an injury is healed is very important to the athletes

future in the sport. These counter measures are standard compared to most other sports, and

arguably more intricate than other sports. So, the fact that the injury rate is still so high is

because it is simply more difficult than other sports.

The article “Preventing Gymnastics Injuries” by Grant L. Jones and Brian R. Wolf is an

article directed at athletes, their parents, and their coaches. This article is intended to inform

athletes and coaches about the best ways to prevent injuries in gymnastics. They start off by

listing the most common injuries in gymnastics. The injuries they mention are the following:

labral tears, elbow dislocation, spraining wrists, ACL injuries, achilles tendon injuries, and lower

back injuries. Labral tears occur in all four events of female gymnastics: bars, beam, floor, and

vault. However, the article mentions that they are most common on bars. Wrist sprains are

common and are typically treated by reducing training and icing it as much as possible. As well

as in other sports, ACL injuries are very common and treated with surgery or a brace if it is

pulled and not torn. Achilles tendon injuries are very common, especially when the athlete is not
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completely warmed up. The article then talks about how to prevent injuries. One of the points

they use is to not ignore pain. The authors write, “if you are hurt, see your doctor and follow

instructions for treatment and recover fully.”(Daly) This may seem like common sense, but lots

of coaches will tell an athlete to just get over it or not believe them if they say they are hurt.

Many athletes will also not want to tell their coaches because they do not want to miss practice

or a meet. If these guidelines were followed by all coaches and athletes, it its arguable that the

injury rate may decrease.

One specific instance of the clear difficulty of gymnastics is Samantha Cerio’s career

ending injury during a meet. She was a senior at Auburn University and she was competing her

first pass, a front handspring double front pike, when she broke both of her legs in the landing. In

Christopher Brito’s article, “Star College Gymnast Suffers Gruesome Leg Injuries During Floor

Routine, then Retires from Sport”, he talks about her impact and the injury itself. He writes that

after the injury she “… announced in an Instagram post Sunday that she’s leaving the sport after

almost two decades.”(Cerio) Now, most college gymnasts have been doing this sport their whole

lives, and she is one of them. It does not make sense that she would do her pass all that wrong,

and she did her pass very well until the landing. According to outside sources, she had been

doing this pass for at least four years, possibly longer. So, how did she end up so severely

injured? This instance proves that the high injury rate is because of the difficulty of the sport

because if you practice something like that for the amount of time that she had been practicing, it

should be muscle memory to execute. Obviously, people will make mistakes but from all the

safety precautions and counter measures, this specific injury is an example of the extreme

difficulty of the sport.

There are lots of skills in gymnastics, but the journal “The Influence of Hand Positions on

Biochemical Injury Risk Factors at the Wrist Joint During the Round-Off Skills in Female

Gymnastics” by Roman Farana, Daniel Jandaka, Jaroslav Uchytil, and Gareth Irwin talks about

the hand placement in round-offs and their purpose was to determine if one way was better than

the other. The two different hand placements are parallel and “T”, which is where the athlete

turns their second hand to hit the floor in to face the first hand. The authors point out that while

tumbling, when the gymnast is on their hands they are putting up to twice their body weight onto

their wrist joint alone. Not only that, but they determined that the second hand to come into

contact with the floor is “exposed to greater bio-physical loads and support use of the T-shape

technique,”(Farana) for round-offs. This is useful because this article is trying to determine

which technique is safer. With that being said, the article also mentions how many female

gymnasts associate floor with wrist pain. If the T shape is the safer way to do a round-off, then

there has to be a better explanation as to why these athletes are still getting hurt. Once again this

is due to the difficulty of the sport. Even in contact sports, athletes do not have to put more than

two times their body weight on one joint as fragile as their wrist. However, in gymnastics it is

more than necessary to perform the skills in that way because of the intricate details of every

skill that have to be done in a very specific way or they will not get the points for that skill.

Specifically with round-offs, if they are what causes these injuries to a degree, this is taught at

the most basic level of the sport. Most gymnasts will compete this in a level two or three routine

where the youngest age to compete would be five. Even in the non-competitive world of

gymnastics, gymnasts are taught this skill because it is one of the most basic foundational skills

in the sport and specifically on floor.

Some injuries become more of an issue as a gymnast progresses to the elite level of the

sport. The journal “Most Common Injuries of the Musculoskeletal System Among Children of

Elementary School Age who Engage in Gymnastic Sports (Aerobics, Artistic or Rhythmic

Gymnastics) at an Elite Level” by Kristina Hassmannová*, Dagmar Pavlů, and Tereza Nováková

talks about which injuries are the most common with elite gymnasts. This is an important

distinction because to be elite, the gymnast has to have been doing gymnastics long enough that

they are performing high difficulty skills effortlessly in order to keep up with the elite level. The

researchers determined that lower limb injuries were significantly more frequent than back and

upper limb injuries, with lots of girls having more than one lower limb injury. Of that group,

ankles and knees were the most frequently injured body part. Girls with higher and lower

training loads had the same frequency of injuries. This shows that the load does not cause

injuries which rules out the injuries being caused by over working the athlete. The data also

showed that “fewer than 29% gymnasts who experienced a musculoskeletal system problem saw

a doctor or physiotherapist immediately after the problem appeared.” This means that the girls

who are being injured are not even seeing a doctor. This is a huge problem because even minor

injuries in this sport can become serious problems down the line. Seeing a doctor over a small

injury and making sure it is healed is the best way to prevent it from turning into a major injury.

This article was concluded by saying that the musculoskeletal system can be frequently

injured in gymnastics and that the main reasons for injuries are the difficulty and the high

training intensity of the sport. The authors also mention that injuries are more common when a

professional is not present. They propose, “an interdisciplinary and multi-sided approach of all

professionals and the child’s family who wish to responsibly contribute to the preparation of

gymnasts from the very beginning as far as the elite level.” Now, this article does not talk about
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the road to the elite level, but finally mentions it when they propose their solution. This solution

does not affect the difficulty of the sport, but rather the coaches and professionals involved and

making sure they are making an effort to keep their athletes safe and keep gymnastics fun for

everyone involved.

One counter argument is that the injury rate is so high due to the fact that gymnasts begin

learning these skills so young. The article “Incidence of Injuries in Rythmic Gymnastics” by

Oltean Antoanela, Maria Magdalena, Copoiu Nicoleta, and Mariana Floricica makes the

argument that girls learning this sport so young is dangerous for them and causes injuries. The

article starts by explaining how the sport has changed and argues that the sport is now much

harder on the back than it was in the past. The authors then talk about how gymnasts have to be

very flexible and how that can build up stress on the joints. While this is true, if the athletes were

not flexible then lots of the movements they have to do would cause severe muscle tears and

sprains. This article brings up the tissue lesions as other articles have mentioned, but these

authors argue that this causes a “muscle imbalance” and that it is dangerous when it is happening

in girls before they hit puberty. This article argues that learning the basic skills at such a young

age and progressing into harder skills damages these girls and causes this sport to be much

riskier because of it. This is simply not the case. Young gymnasts have to learn the basic skills at

such a young age because of the difficulty of the sport itself. As athletes begin to progress, the

skills become much more difficult. Unfortunately for most athletes, gymnastics is one sport that

people end up having to grow out of. Most female gymnasts are in their athletic prime around

age 20-25 and after that, they just cannot do their skills like they used to. So, if these girls were

to wait to begin learning the skills needed for gymnastics, it would be significantly harder for

them to work their way up to elite or college level. Injury rates in this sport are very high, but
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everything involves the basics these athletes learn as children and without it there would be a

higher risk of injury. With that, the athlete would be more likely to be scared and bail out of a

skill since it would be newer in their mind. Lots of young gymnasts progress so fast because they

do not overthink what they are doing. As they get older, they start to understand that if they mess

up, they could get hurt. So, learning these basics at such a young age is actually helpful in

preventing injuries.

This article also goes into detail about the effect of number of training hours a week

versus injuries. They determined that gymnasts training over 26 hours a week increased their risk

of injury. This can become a problem because if the athlete is not training enough, they will fall

behind. However, if the athlete is training too much they run the risk of being injured. This can

also be due to the fact that each athlete has a point they can train more than needed but not

necessarily improve. This is where athletes undergo overworking injuries and fatigue which can

also cause injuries because the athlete will not be at their best but will be trying to train still.

This image is from the movie “Full Out” which is about an Olympic-bound gymnast

whose dreams are crushed after a severe car accident. This story is a heartwarming

journey back into the gymnastics world after a serious injury. Clearly, anyone can be in a
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car accident so that situation is not specific to gymnasts. However, this story shows how

difficult it is to come back into this sport after a serious injury. While this movie is based on

a true story and there have been cases similar to this one, the outcome is unfortunately not

always this positive. As with any sport, there are athletes willing to overcome obstacles like

this one, but many times the athlete is unable to physically work themselves enough to get

back to that point.

The high injury rate in gymnastics is because of the high difficulty of the sport. This sport

uses lots of different prevention methods, treatment methods, and rehabilitation methods when it

comes to injuries. It is arguable that gymnastics is the most involved with injury prevention than

any other sport. With that, the injury rate is still very high, especially for an individual sport.

This sport has a huge impact on thousands of athletes across the world and if coaches and

administrators were more involved, then these injuries may eventually be prevented. Something

a person has been doing their whole life should not end their athletic career.

Works Cited
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Arrington, Brooke. “Gymnastics Injury Rate Rivals That of Contact Sports.” The Daily Universe,

25 Mar. 2013, https://universe.byu.edu/2013/03/19/gymnastics-injury-rate-rivals-that-of-contact-

sports1/

Brito, Christopher. “Star College Gymnast Suffers Gruesome Leg Injuries during Floor Routine,

Then Retires from Sport.” CBS News, CBS Interactive, 8 Apr. 2019,

www.cbsnews.com/news/auburn-gymnast-breaks-both-legs-samantha-cerio-auburn-college-

gymnast-injury-retires-video/.

Cisterna, Sean, director. Full Out. Carmel Creek Productions, 2015.

Daly, R M, et al. “Balancing the Risk of Injury to Gymnasts: How Effective Are the Counter

Measures?” British Journal of Sports Medicine, British Association of Sport and Excercise

Medicine, 1 Feb. 2001, bjsm.bmj.com/content/35/1/8.

Farana, Roman, et al. “The Influence of Hand Positions on Biomechanical Injury Risk Factors at

the Wrist Joint during the Round-off Skills in Female Gymnastics.” Journal of Sports Sciences,

vol. 35, no. 2, Jan. 2017, pp. 124–129. EBSCOhost,

search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=s3h&AN=120129013&site=eds-live.

“Full Out.” Netflix, 31 Aug. 2018, www.netflix.com/title/80102579.

Hassmannová, Kristina, et al. “Most Common Injuries of the Musculoskeletal System among

Children of Elementary School Age Who Engage in Gymnastic Sports (Aerobics, Artistic or

Rhythmic Gymnastics) at an Elite Level.” Acta Universitatis Carolinae: Kinanthropologica, vol.

55, no. 1, Jan. 2019, pp. 10–20. EBSCOhost,

search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=s3h&AN=137370495&site=eds-live.

Jones, Grant L, and Brian R Wolf. “Preventing Gymnastics Injuries.” Gymnastics Injuries |

Gymnastics Injury Prevention & Treatment, 2019,

www.stopsportsinjuries.org/STOP/Prevent_Injuries/Gymnastics_Injury_Prevention.aspx.

OLTEAN, Antoanela, et al. “Incidence of Injuries in Rhythmic Gymnastics.” Ovidius University

Annals, Series Physical Education & Sport/Science, Movement & Health, vol. 17, no. 2, July

2017, pp. 427–432. EBSCOhost,

search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=s3h&AN=126246937&site=eds-live