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(HealthNewsDigest.com) – A new national study shows that young men aren’t the only ones pumping iron, and certainly not the only ones getting injured while doing so. Results from the first comprehensive study focusing solely on injuries in the weight room point to an overwhelming increase in injuries among teenage girls – up a staggering 143 percent over a nearly 20-year period. Data from the study, conducted at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, are available online as a Preview Publication-Before-Print in the American Journal of Sports Medicine.
Over an 18-year period, from 1990-2007, researchers plotted injuries* – from dropped weights to pinched fingers – and found that as this form of exercise grows, so do trips to the hospital.
“We found that nearly one million people, over 970,000, sustained weight-training related injuries during that time period,” says Dawn Comstock, Ph.D., the researcher at Nationwide Children’s Hospital who led the study.
Study data indicate that males (82 percent) and youths aged 13 to 24 years (47 percent) sustained the largest proportion of weight training-related injuries. The majority of injuries occurred during the use of free weights (90 percent), and the most common mechanism of injury were weights dropping on a person (65 percent). Injuries to the upper (25 percent) and lower trunk (20 percent) were the most common followed by injuries to the hand (19 percent). The most frequent injury diagnoses were sprains and strains (46 percent) followed by soft tissue injuries (18 percent).
Although males sustained the largest proportion of weight training injuries over the study period, the increase in injuries in teenage girls was much higher than the increase in teenage boys, indicating that more females are participating, Dr. Comstock says.
That’s not surprising to Mary Ann Grimes. She has coached for 34 years and says over the last 20 she’s seen a surge in girls committed to weight training, a change she has encouraged when done safely and with proper supervision.
“They really enjoy it and they can see success, so they’re just as into the fitness as the boys are,” Grimes says.
If your daughter or son is lifting, experts recommend keeping these tips in mind:
-Never lift alone. It’s best to have a coach or trainer nearby at all times.
-Always use a spotter.
-Be sure to start slowly and build up to heavier weights.
Most injuries happen, experts say, not because kids are lifting too much, but because they’re supervised too little.
While teenage girls showed the biggest increase in weightlifting injuries among the young, experts say the biggest jump belonged to those 45 and over. Typically younger people were hurt with free weights, and older people were injured by using weight machines – and spraining or straining their muscles.
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