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Football players and knee injuries


gortiz

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Anybody have any insight on why football players seem to have knee injuries (i.e. ACL, MCL tears) more than any other sport?

Is that assumption even valid? It just seems you hear about it more in football.

Now, just to make a distinction, the obvious knee injury due to a collision is easy to understand ... what i'm talking about is the non-contact knee injury.

Don't tell me b-ball players and soccer players don't cut as hard and put as much stress on their knees as football players. I wonder how often this happens in rugby? Its just weird to me ... I mean look at catchers in baseball? they seem to manage without tears and such and god knows they put a lot of stress on their knees.

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They are, in general, heavier than players of other sports. Thus, the added forces from upper leg/hips/upper body mass all put more stress on the knees than other sports.

Soccer is actually the sport with the most knee injuries though besides cheerleading.

The fact that football players are required to put on mass and get strong helps stave off injuries to joints/ligaments. However, soccer especially at lower levels and with girls who have bigger Q-angles are at much greater risk for developing knee ligament injuries.

Women in basketball, soccer, etc. have as much as 4-8+ times greater risk of ACL/MCL/meniscus/etc. injuries than their male counterparts.

Strength and proper biomechanics will help stave off injuries.

Players like Wes Welker who had non-contact ACL, MCL, and meniscus tears have them result from cumulative damage. It's not just the one incident where it occurs -- all the cutting and contact hits they take to their legs stretch out the ligaments slowly over time. For example, right after ACL surgery about 6 months out your replaced ACL is actually stronger than your non-replaced one in the other knee because it isn't stretched out yet.

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Don't tell me b-ball players and soccer players don't cut as hard and put as much stress on their knees as football players. I wonder how often this happens in rugby? Its just weird to me ... I mean look at catchers in baseball? they seem to manage without tears and such and god knows they put a lot of stress on their knees.

Simple question, how many other teams put on as much padding? How many 300 plus soccer players are there? Is weight required for Basketball?

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Good topic...actually I have been thinking this for a while, but I think we should start a "Brian Orakpo Protect Your Knees Movement". Haslett has already said he is the cornerstone of this defense so he is our most important guy out there. He has a history of knee problems in college and defensive ends always have knee injuries.

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Simple question, how many other teams put on as much padding? How many 300 plus soccer players are there? Is weight required for Basketball?

hocky players? I think they got a good deal of padding and I have to imagine they exert an unnatural amount of strain on their knees ...

I don't think there are many 300 plus soccer players, but I i know alot of nfl guys well under 300 pounds that have brutal non contact knee injuries.

To a degree, yeah, weight is required for Basketball ... when these guys come out of college or highschool I think their is a push for them to gain weight.

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They are, in general, heavier than players of other sports. Thus, the added forces from upper leg/hips/upper body mass all put more stress on the knees than other sports.

i see your point ... but Hixon and Welker? How about Rod Woodson a few years back ...totally untouched.

these are "small" guys

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i see your point ... but Hixon and Welker? How about Rod Woodson a few years back ...totally untouched.

these are "small" guys

You can add in Will Blackmon (202), Al Harris (188), and Brett Swain (203) for "small" guys who blew out their knees last year. Add in Aaron Kampman and that's 4 packers on IR because of their knees.

Donald Driver and Nick Barnett, while not eliminated with knee issues, did have surgery this off-season on their knees. Also Ronald Talley from our practice squad had knee surgery in the off-season.

that's 7 players in one orginization with knee problems just this year, 4 of whom are under 205 pounds

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hocky players? I think they got a good deal of padding and I have to imagine they exert an unnatural amount of strain on their knees ...

I can tell you from experience that my knees do bother me a little bit after a game. But the position in hockey that's the worst on knees is goaltender, and they are certainly known for blowing out their knees.

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i see your point ... but Hixon and Welker? How about Rod Woodson a few years back ...totally untouched.

these are "small" guys

Did you read the rest of my post?

When light guys are getting tackled by heavy guys it stretches out the ligaments in the knees. Cumulative damage.

If you're catching 100 passes a year like Welker and running 60-70 plays a game + pre season and post season you're going to be taking a lot of hits on your body. Guys are going to tackle you at the knees, or go for your waist and land on your legs.

Of course guys that rely on agility and cutting based ability are likely going to be the ones who suffer non-contact ligament tears after the cumulative damage is enough that the force of the speed is greater than that of the ligaments to handle.

Guys that are slower are less likely to have non-contact based injuries because they're not running as fast, and they tend to have more muscle on their legs.

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Hey...would you like to read some real statistics on this discussion? Because that might be nice. As opposed to - I don't know - just ****ing speculating.

http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5538a1.htm

High school sports are probably the best place to get numbers since the volume is significant.

This is interesting. It appears that - go figure - the body parts that you use most in a sport are the body parts which are most often injured.

Table 5 reveals the body parts that were commonly injured in the various sports. The 2 cases of head injuries recorded were from track and field and football (one each). Track and field presented with the highest number of thigh injuries. The largest proportion of injuries in the groin and lower abdominal category were also from track and field (46.2%). The knee was reported as the most injured body part in handball (21.6%), basketball (21.6%) and football (27.0%). Shoulder/arm injuries were highest in hockey (27.3%) and handball (27.3%), while wrist/hand injuries were highest in basketball (42.9%).

http://www.ispub.com/journal/the_internet_journal_of_rheumatology/volume_6_number_1_41/article/a-retrospective-study-of-sports-injuries-reported-at-the-national-sports-medicine-centre-lagos-south-west-nigeria.html

So...in conclusion, football has twice as many injuries as most other sports. And knee injuries make up a quarter of all football injuries.

Thank you.

Have a nice day.

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Hey...would you like to read some real statistics on this discussion? Because that might be nice. As opposed to - I don't know - just ****ing speculating.

http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5538a1.htm

High school sports are probably the best place to get numbers since the volume is significant.

This is interesting. It appears that - go figure - the body parts that you use most in a sport are the body parts which are most often injured.

http://www.ispub.com/journal/the_internet_journal_of_rheumatology/volume_6_number_1_41/article/a-retrospective-study-of-sports-injuries-reported-at-the-national-sports-medicine-centre-lagos-south-west-nigeria.html

So...in conclusion' date=' football has twice as many injuries as most other sports. And knee injuries make up a quarter of all football injuries.

Thank you.

Have a nice day.[/quote']

1. High school sports don't take into account statistics of other kids playing in other leagues outside of high school sports. For some sports like soccer or gymnastics, there is higher level competition by not playing with the team in high school. On the other hand, the majority of some sports such as football or basketball are high level athletes for these teams.

Confounding factors here.

2. The study you linked is of the a SUB-POPULATION OF NIGERIA.

The "football" they are referring to in that study is SOCCER.......

I don't even know what else to say about this other than that it's the wrong country AND the wrong sport.

Only in the U.S. is american football a big phenomena really...

3. Regarding catastrophic injuries, gymnastics, cheerleading, and ice hockey all high higher rates than football:

http://bjsm.bmj.com/content/43/13/981.extract

I'm having a hard time finding accurate statistics for all sports across age brackets though.

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Anybody have any insight on why football players seem to have knee injuries (i.e. ACL, MCL tears) more than any other sport?

Is that assumption even valid? It just seems you hear about it more in football.

Now, just to make a distinction, the obvious knee injury due to a collision is easy to understand ... what i'm talking about is the non-contact knee injury.

Don't tell me b-ball players and soccer players don't cut as hard and put as much stress on their knees as football players. I wonder how often this happens in rugby? Its just weird to me ... I mean look at catchers in baseball? they seem to manage without tears and such and god knows they put a lot of stress on their knees.

not only are we very large men moving at serious speed but we are almost always bending our knees as well, and at some angles the knees are very weak.

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1. High school sports don't take into account statistics of other kids playing in other leagues outside of high school sports. For some sports like soccer or gymnastics, there is higher level competition by not playing with the team in high school. On the other hand, the majority of some sports such as football or basketball are high level athletes for these teams.

Confounding factors here.

2. The study you linked is of the a SUB-POPULATION OF NIGERIA.

The "football" they are referring to in that study is SOCCER.......

I don't even know what else to say about this other than that it's the wrong country AND the wrong sport.

Only in the U.S. is american football a big phenomena really...

3. Regarding catastrophic injuries, gymnastics, cheerleading, and ice hockey all high higher rates than football:

http://bjsm.bmj.com/content/43/13/981.extract

I'm having a hard time finding accurate statistics for all sports across age brackets though.

I think the "SOCCER" you are referring to is called football.

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I think the "SOCCER" you are referring to is called football.

Uh, yeah?

It's from Nigeria so they call it football (soccer).

We are discussing american football here... so I'm not sure why a study on a sub-population on Nigerian football (soccer) is relevant to American football....

:beatdeadhorse:

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