Prévention des lésions de l’appareil locomoteur liées à la pratique de l’athlétisme sur piste. Revue des données épidémiologiques

Objectives

Sports injuries have an important impact on the sport and in daily life. Although athletics is known and performed on five continents, few is known about epidemiological data such as frequency, incidence, diagnosis or risk factors of injuries in athletics. In this context, consideration on strategies of sports injury prevention in athletics should be conducted.

Current knowledge

Sports injury surveillance by epidemiological studies is a preliminary step necessary in the clinical research on sports injury prevention. This is permitted by an agreed and validated methodolgy. Currently, the musculoskeletal lesions related to the track and field practice are common. The great diversity of these lesions reflects the diversity of disciplines, the constraints are different between the explosive disciplines (sprints, hurdles, jumps, throws) and endurance disciplines (middle and long distance). There was a predominance of lesions of thigh and hamstrings in the disciplines of sprint/hurdles, the Achilles tendon in jumps and sprints/hurdles, and chronic knee injuries and stress fractures in middle-distance.

Conclusion

Preventive measures which target the most frequent pathologies should be introduced. However, these data appear insufficient to fully understand the specific injury according to disciplines, and to understand the risk factors and injury mechanisms. Therefore, prospective epidemiological studies, and studies focused on specific populations or pathologies, are needed to improve strategies for the prevention of injuries in track and field.