Getting yourself involved in any sports activities might put yourself at high risk of getting injury, even if you are being protected by appropriate body protection. Body protection is only to minimize any potential collision impact on athletes and injuries such as muscles strain and joints sprain are not preventable only by wearing body protection kits. Injury is likelihood to leave behind negative impacts on athletes’ physical as well as their psychological condition. Areas of sports injury comprises short-term and long-term impacts on athletes, sources of injury, injury rehabilitation process and also post-injury condition of athletes.
Changes in emotion and behaviour during post-injury are straightforward approach to measure the short-term responses of the athletes. Changes in mood and manifestation of anxiety sign should be looked into an injured athlete because these attributes are regarded as perceptible changes in their emotion. As for athlete’s behaviour, they often portray changes in their manner as well as their actions and this is due to negative emotions that are being expressed through behaviour.
Human emotions are susceptible to the surrounding environment. Ivarsson, Tranaues, Johson and Stenling (2017) suggest that development of negative affective response, a personality that inclines to endure negative emotional state; is triggered by the injury itself. Anxiety, as an example, a feeling that makes someone worry and nervous. Getting an injury from athletes’ perspectives, will devastate athletes’ performances in sports and slow down progress of their career. There, they start to develop negative emotion by portraying anxiety symptoms and psychological distress not only inhibits the rehabilitation process, but also make them vulnerable to the risk of infection (Ivarsson et al., 2017).
Another measureable variable, changes in athletes’ behaviour is a result of negative emotion. Limited interaction and lack of athleticism are the examples of negative traits that an injured athlete may exhibit. According to Covassin, Crutcher, Bleecker, Heiden, Dailey and Yang (2014), athletes who pick up injury tend to endure high level state psychological distress that shapes character of the athletes. An injured athletes feel that they are overwhelmed by anxious and worry about future career and could not cope with their current physical state. Besides, emotions of a person are understandable through their way of acting. Thus, athlete’s emotions and behaviour are examples of short term impact on injured athletes.
Athletes with severe injury record might be experiencing the impact of it in the coming days and potential of health problem in the long run. Two type of injuries, acute injuries and chronic injuries; acute injuries happen unexpectedly when playing while chronic injuries is post-match injuries such as tendonitis. Joints sprain, as an example, is a state in which ligaments are over-extended and if it is severe, it might leave effects on a person.
Excessive playing time might expose an athlete to acute injuries and it will cause detrimental in physical condition even after they retire. A research on injury profile conducted on past elite Australian football players found that “over 60 percent of player receiving serious injuries reported an impact upon their current daily life and required ongoing medical treatment” (King, Rosenberg, Braham, Ferguson, & Dawson, 2012). The phrase ‘ongoing medical treatment’ suggests that athletes with acute injury record have incurred physical impairment that requires them to seek medical attention. However, there is simple correspondence between the probability of injuries does not wholly recover and ageing factor.
Reduced range of motion is potential injury that retired athletes are vulnerable to and it is classified as long term impact of having acute injury background. Agility deals with sharp body movement supported by good joint condition and muscle contraction that will deliver best sports performances to athletes. Common injury that is potential to limit range of motion is associated to joint strains in which athletes are having difficulty to move their joints due to torn ligaments. Torn ligaments can only be restored through a minor surgery; a ligament reconstruction that requires a replacement with healthy tendon from hamstring for example. Having permanent physical impairment, athletes may have bounded body motion and it will jeopardize their physical movement to prevent further injuries.
Physical and psychological factors of athletes had been identified as most common elements that lead us closer to sports injuries. Both factors, physical and psychological, play significant roles in determining athletes’ preparation level to participate in competitive tournaments. Athletes’ preparation level, to certain extent, could alleviate percentage of getting injury, however, there is external factor such as pitch condition that contributes to injury.
Multitudinous factors that contributes to injuries can be diversified into several elements; physical and psychological factor, ages and nutrition (Fernández, Zurita, Cepero, Moline, Vilches, Ambris, & Julio, 2013). Physical fitness gives a person ability to perform any sports and it is attainable through proper nutrition, physical condition as well as getting sufficient rest. An athlete should devise a proper routine to attain standards such as top-notch fitness level and good body condition so that they are eligible to play in competitive matches. It is important to reach certain standard criteria of an athletes in order to maintain excellent physical condition and avoid injuries.
Human psychology is closely associated with their performances. Two important elements; mental readiness and relationship with teammates, could be effective factors that promote psychological readiness as sports contenders. Fernández et al. (2013) deduce that psychological readiness helps to lower down the magnitude of anxiety in athletes. Thus, it improves athletes’ performances and safeguards athletes’ well-being during competition. Improved physical and psychological of athletes are important to assure the anxiety level does not provoke the athletes.
Rehabilitation is a process of recovering from injury which includes restoration of confidence level, regaining full function of body and others. During rehabilitation process, athletes will be introduced to three coping mechanisms; emotional support, tangible support and informational support. Coping mechanism is a strategy that facilitates rehabilitation process aimed to manage psychological distress.
According to a research conducted by Covassion et al. (2014), they drew a conclusion that “athlete with anxiety will seek for coping mechanisms that will ease the recovery process” which means coping mechanism is productive measure to help injured athletes. Emotional support is a form of help that able to convey positive vibes to patients. Anxiety is a parasite that attaches to the emotion which will cast negative thoughts to an injured athlete. Family, teammates and coaches are the closest person who are capable of giving assistance by offering encouragement and empathy to the injured athletes, moreover, it can restore confidence level of a person. Tangible support, a provision of practice assistance and services to a person, is a direct way of assisting people. A rehabilitation program, for an example, helps injured athletes to acquire recent training programs that speed up rehabilitation process. Another method to approach injured athletes is through informational support which means a provision of advice, guidance and suggestions to them. Therefore, coping mechanism is an effective strategy to bring injured athletes’ confidence back.
Post-injury condition of athletes is an analysis that discusses not only the capability of athletes to return to play sports but also the inverse of it; retirement from sports. Self-efficacy and increased confidence level of athletes are important elements that help athletes to play sports again while body impairment and other commitments justify why sportspersons retire from sports.
Return to play refers to getting back on sports career and participate in a competitive match after recovering from injuries. It requires strong determination to start playing sports again at similar level prior to the injury took place and in order to accomplish the intended results, a sportsperson needs to restore his confidence level first. A related study that can provide evidences of the statement above states that the decision to return to sports before injury took place only can be determined by sportspersons’ psychological readiness (Ardern, Österberg, Tagesson, Gauffin, Webster, & Joanna, 2014).
A similar study by Ardern et al. (2013) provided statistics that three fifth subjects had gone into retirement; 28 percent are not confident in their knee condition, 24 percent terrified of enduring new injury and the rest had poor knee function. Physical impairment due acute injury background forces athletes to go into retirement because they unable to cope with their previous pre-injury performances. Furthermore, they fear of sustaining another injury that might take longer time to recover due to ageing factor. Therefore, there are two possibilities after sustaining injuries; able to continue their sports career or voluntarily go into retirement.
In the nutshell, athletes who sustain injuries would have started developing negative traits which is anxiety. Anxiety can be treated with multiple approaches and it relies on the athletes themselves whether to fight it off or vice versa. Injuries are preventable if we are physically and psychologically ready to compete in any sports tournaments. Thus, sports injury is a topic that must be taken seriously to ensure the sportspersons able to maintain a good physical condition.