Injuries in adolescent and preadolescent boys at two large wrestling tournaments

Abstract

We evaluated injury patterns at two wrestling tourna ments involving 1742 participants, aged 6 to 16 years. The overall injury rate was 12.7%. Injuries requiring withdrawal from the tournament occurred in 4.6% of the participants. Of all participants, 3% sustained an injury in their first match, and 1.1 % sustained an injury during their first match that required withdrawal from the tournament. Primary areas of injury were the upper extremity (33%) and the neck and back (24%). Wil coxon rank-sum tests revealed that increasing age and increasing weight were correlated with injury, whereas multiple logistic regression analysis revealed that only increasing age was correlated with injury. These find ings suggest the need for medical supervision at large wrestling tournaments, where it is likely that severe injuries will occur. In addition, older wrestlers and per haps heavier wrestlers are at an increased risk for injury.