Relationship between techniques and injuries among judo practitioners

Abstract

Judo is a Martial art created in 1882 characterized by a great number of techniques and philosophical basis, and it has been mentioned in several studies as one of the sports presenting a higher amount of injury occurrences. Nevertheless, there are few detailed surveys to allow performing a causal correlation between the technical aspects and the percentage picture of the injuries found in this sportive modality. The sampling was constituted by seventy-eight case reports attained after applying a close ques-tionnaire in forty-six 23 years old ± 10 years male athletes, and thirty-two 19 years old ± 7 years female athletes. The mean time of practice for male athletes was 9 ± 6 years, and their level was distributed as follows: 20 % black belt, 50 % brown belt, and 30% with lower than brown belt level. The female athletes presented a mean time of practice of 5 ± 3 years, distributed as follows: 9% black belt, 25 % brown belt, and 66 % with lower than brown belt level. After applying a questionnaire, it was observed that injuries occurred in 23 % prevalence in the knee joint, followed by 16 % in the shoulder, 22 % in fingers and toes, and the remaining occur-rences amounted 39%. 10 % of injuries were mild, 9 % were mod-erate injuries, and 63 % were severe injuries. The relationship of the training injuries attained 71 % of the cases, and 42 % of that total occurred when heavier fighter participated in the training. The most frequent strokes that caused injuries were the Ippon seoi Nague, with a 23 % incidence, the Tai otoshi, with 22%, and the Uchi mata, 9%.