Know When to Change Sports
If your favorite sport causes chronic pain or an injury that
does not heal, you should probably switch to another sport. Two
recent studies from the Argentine Tennis Association followed
players with knee and shoulder problems (British Journal of
Sports Medicine, May 2006). In the first study, men who had
anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) tears showed a great drop in
their tennis performance. The knee is just two sticks held
together by four bands, called ligaments. Two ligaments are
located on the outside of the knee and two ligaments cross in the
middle of the knee joint. The ACL runs from the bottom of the
upper bone of the knee joint forward to the top of the lower bone
of the knee joint. It prevents the upper bone of the knee joint
from slipping backward when your knee hits the ground. When this
ligament is torn, each foot strike causes the upper bone to slide
backward over the lower bone, shears off cartilage in the process
and hastens a knee replacement. It is downright dangerous for a
person with a torn ACL to play tennis or run until the ligament is
replaced. Even then the surgical replacement is not as strong as
the original ACL and that person risks joint damage every time
he runs, jumps and turns on his knee joint.
The second study followed older men who had played
tennis for many years and had no shoulder pain, surgery or
trauma to their shoulders. Even with no symptoms, thirty-three
percent of these men had significant x-ray findings of joint
damage called osteoarthritis in their dominant shoulder, and the
older they were, the more likely they were to have this damage.
X rays showed increased incidence of joint space narrowing, joint
cysts, bone fragments, flattening of the joint cartilage,
displacement of the upper arm bone and erosion of the joint cup.
If you are a long-time tennis player and have shoulder pain, your
doctor will probably recommend that you stop playing tennis.
The good news is that switching to a new sport is much
easier than starting from inactivity. Training principles are the
same for all sports. Give yourself time to learn new skills and
build up the muscles you have not used before.
June 15, 2006
Checked 9/28/08