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By Léa Asmelash | CNN
Sports fans all over the world are starting to see a trend emerging: their favorite athletes are getting injured.
Many NBA stars have missed playoff games this spring with a variety of nagging injuries. Most recently, the Los Angeles Clippers’ Kawhi Leonard injured his knee in the middle of a game, an injury that sent superstar LeBron James into a three-tweet rant berating the league and its handling of games during the Covid pandemic. -19.
“These injuries aren’t just part of the game,” said James, citing the shortened offseason and the players’ lack of rest. “It’s crazy. If there is one person who knows the body and how it works all year round, it’s ME! I speak for the health of all of our players and I hate to see so many injuries around this time. of the year.
It doesn’t just happen in the NBA. It happens in all sports.
The NFL has seen a significant increase in its injury rate in the first four weeks of the 2020 season compared to previous years, according to a study. In Major League Baseball, the injury rate has nearly doubled from the rate in seasons prior to Covid-19. Similar trends have been seen in football leagues around the world, especially in Germany and England.
And on Thursday, Spain’s tennis player Rafael Nadal, the world’s third-largest male player, announced he would not be playing at Wimbledon or the Olympics, a huge concession from a top player. In his announcement, Nadal said his body needed more time to rest after the French Open, which ended two weeks before the start of Wimbledon.
The Covid-19 has taken its toll in sport around the world. The NFL in 2020 canceled its preseason, which researchers blamed on increased injuries in the early weeks of the regular season. The MLB preseason has been shortened and the regular season has been delayed, which researchers also cited when analyzing injury rates.
The Bundesliga, the German soccer league, made headlines last year as one of the first leagues to resume play – but researchers found athletes were three times more likely to suffer injuries after the lockdown of Covid-19.
Fewer matches can seem like less injuries. But when players’ bodies are suddenly tested in competition after months of relative inactivity, sometimes they don’t respond well.
The pandemic has taken its toll on athletes
The lack of rest between matches of course contributed to the problem. The NBA, for example, had a shortened season in 2020-21 but still managed to cut 72 regular season games over a period of roughly five months. It’s only 10 games less than a normal NBA season, but a full month less – and for playoff teams, the season continues.
But lack of rest is only part of the story.
“What we are seeing right now is not just due to lack of rest, it could be due to the whole toll of the pandemic and the resumption of physical activity in competitive sports after a lockdown,” he said. said Janet Simon, associate professor of athletic training at Ohio University.
While it’s easy to think of the lockdown as essentially an extended offseason, Simon said it really isn’t. During the offseason, professional athletes continue to train and train. But with Covid-19, gyms and parks were closed, which meant physical activity was more limited for everyone. For professional athletes, this lack of movement can have a huge impact.
For example, MLB took a break from spring training last year, and the return-to-play date has kept getting pushed back. Some players may have trained regularly, but with no idea if there would even be a season, others might not have, Simon said. Eventually, practice resumed on July 1, opening day was July 23, and baseball played a limited season of 60 games rather than the full 162 games.
Pre-seasons should ideally last four to six weeks, Simon said. MLB, not counting pre-lockout training, only lasted three weeks.
All of this together – the lack of rest, the crowded preseason, the potentially higher workload – can lead to an increased risk of injury for athletes, Simon said.
In England, the Premier League did not have a normal preseason and always had a busy playing schedule. Gary Lewin, a physiotherapist who has worked with Arsenal FC, blamed the circumstances on the increase in injuries the teams saw in the 2020-21 season.
“If you are not fully recovered from your previous match, fatigue will set in and muscle injuries will increase, because if you have tired muscles and you load them again, they will break,” he said. he explained in a BBC interview. Radio 5.
Players are more susceptible to soft tissue injuries
Simon uses the term “de-training” to describe a period in which a person does not exercise for a period of time. Everyone, professional athlete or not, goes through this – which is why the first workouts after the holidays can be the hardest.
For professional athletes, however, who are used to a high level of physical activity, de-training can have dangerous results.
“We know that de-training has many consequences,” Simon said, citing decreased cardiac output, hormonal problems and decreased muscle performance as examples. “So if all of these things are happening during the lockdown and we expect these people to resume their normal activities, we know that is not going to happen. ”
And that, as we’ve seen, is associated with the risk of injury, Simon said.
Not all injuries are due to the impact of Covid-19. But soft tissue injuries – such as sprains and strains in the hamstrings, groin and other areas – are going to be more common, Simon said.
He verifies. In the NBA, Mike Conley of the Utah Jazz and James Harden of the Brooklyn Nets both missed several playoff games with hamstring strain. Jack Flaherty, a St. Louis Cardinals pitcher, was sidelined with an oblique strain. Christian Pulisic of Chelsea FC also faced several hamstring strains during the 2020 English Premier League season.
It’s all part of the sport’s business, Simon said. In high school sports, it’s easier to give athletes the time they need to recover. When money is at stake, it is a little more complicated.
The good news is that this period will not last forever. Simon predicts that once sports schedules realign to pre-pandemic timelines, maybe in a year or two, increased injuries will no longer be an issue.
Until then, a rash from soft tissue damage may be inevitable.
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