Prevalence of injuries in triathletes from a French league

Objective


To assess the prevalence of trauma injuries in triathletes and look for contributing factors involved.



Method


An anonymous questionnaire about trauma history during the past season was sent by post to 788 triathletes from a French league.



Results


52.4% of triathletes responding reported having been injured at least once during the past season, for 17% of them several times. 83.5% of injuries occurred during training, mostly in running (72.5%). The tendinopathies (44.5%), and muscle injuries (35%), were the most frequently reported. The anatomical sites most frequently reported were the ankle (20.6%), knee (18.3%), thigh (15%), lumbar region (12.6%) and shoulder (8,3%). 77% of injured triathletes were able to keep training, mainly in swimming (71%) and cycling (61.5%), while running was stopped in 85.5% of cases. Injured triathletes reported devote significantly less time to warm-up than uninjured triathletes (respectively 13.7min vs. 18min) (p<0.01). Time devoted to stretching was also lower for injured vs. uninjured (respectively 8.3min vs. 10.6min) (p<0.01). The same association was also found between time spent warming up and stretching and the prevalence of tendinopathies.



The prevalence of muscle injuries was significantly associated with number of training hours per week (p<0.05) and weekly training distance swimming, cycling and running (p<0.05).



Conclusion


Injuries encountered in amateur triathletes are musculoskeletal injuries of «overuse», occurring mainly in training, especially running.