Monday 31 August 2009

Injuries in Ultimate Frisbee, Prevention and Rehabilitaion

Just a quick google search brings up a whole load of useful information for injury prevention along with rehab and physical therapy if you've already gone and done yourself a mischief. As I've mentioned in a couple of earlier posts, I've damaged my knee ligaments. I've got a scan on the 21st Sept to find out if I need surgery and until then im on crutches and having to wear a pretty severe looking leg brace.

With the growth of Ultimate in both player numbers and level of competition there are now a number of online resources specifically for Ultimate players and their injuries. I thought I'd provide the links as it's only once you have sustained an injury that you fully appreciate what the old guys on your team were saying when they would keep banging on about proper warm ups/downs, core exercises, plyos etc etc. The problem with the retrospective approach to injury is that without the proper knowledge, some parts of the body will simply never be the same again. Repeated often amongst the literature is that injury prevention is the key to a long Ultimate career and the key to injury prevention can be found in the following sites:

Ultimate Frisbee Injury Prevention

A clear and concise article highlighting the four main knee injuries that are found commonly in Ultimate players.
  • Patello-femoral syndrome
  • Ligament sprain
  • Cartilage Tear
  • Iliotibial band (ITB) syndrome

Along with explanation and preventative measures for them.


Prevent Injury and Enhance Performance (a PEP programme)

Here you can find a detailed warm up regime, applicable to most field sports. It incorporates plenty of stretches focusing on the lower extremities which suffer injury most commonly in Ultimate, with full explanations of the what, why and how.

Ultimate Frisbee. The players, their injuries and the role of the Chiropractor.

An interesting article written by a Canadian Chiropracter who plays Ultimate.

Injuries From Ultimate Frisbee

An informative paper from the Wisconsin Medical Journal.

This video is from the most in depth, Ultimate specific, injury prevention and rehab website that I've come across so far. It's called InjuryTimeout. There is bucket loads of useful information. The key is to take it on board and put it into practice!



Well I think I'll leave it there for now. I guess if from reading some of this information one person somewhere avoids one injury from playing Ultimate, then this post is more than wortwhile!

4 comments:

  1. My friend snapped his Achilles tendon playing ultimate.

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  2. You should wear a knee brace! I am the captain of my ultimate team in college and have done quite a bit of research on the topic. Knee braces add stability and support and prevent injuries.

    Check out BraceAbility they offer a variety of braces and loads of information on injuries and uses of knee braces.

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  3. Yeah you should wear a knee brace! I swear im not from a company trying to sell knee braces.

    Actually you shouldn't wear a knee brace unless you're required to one by a doctor. Strengthen it naturally with exercise. Otherwise it will weaken with repeated use of a brace.

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  4. Please update the links on this. Most of the links don't work

    ReplyDelete