IB Sports, exercise and health science B.3.1.3 Relationship Between Chronic or Overuse Injuries and Poor Technique Notes

Chronic and overuse injuries

1. Chronic injuries develop gradually through repeated stress over weeks or months.
2. Overuse injuries result from the same tissue being loaded repeatedly without enough recovery.
3. They differ from acute injuries because there is no single identifiable moment of onset.
4. They are almost always linked to a technique problem or training error.

Key characteristics

1. Gradual onset of symptoms over weeks or months.
2. Repetitive movements load the same tissues thousands of times.
3. Technique problems are almost always involved.
4. Worsens without intervention because the cause keeps repeating.

Common sites of chronic injury

Upper body

1. Shoulder: rotator cuff issues develop in throwing and overhead sports.
2. Elbow: tendinopathies appear in tennis, golf, and pitching.
3. Wrist: overuse injuries are common in gymnasts and racquet sport players.

Lower body

1. Knee: patellofemoral pain syndrome (runner's knee) affects distance runners.
2. Achilles: tendinopathy develops in jumpers and distance runners.
3. Shin: medial tibial stress syndrome (shin splints) appears with poor foot mechanics or load progression.

Biomechanical maladaptations

1. A biomechanical maladaptation is a movement pattern that gets the job done but does it inefficiently.
2. The athlete still hits the ball or lands the jump, but force travels through the body in the wrong way.
3. Some tissues take more load than they should, and over time the overloaded tissues fail.

Common roots

1. Poor technique from inadequate coaching or rushed skill development.
2. Muscle imbalances where some muscles dominate and others stay underactive.
3. Postural problems carried over from daily life.
4. Compensatory movements developed around an old injury.
5. Improper training progression when load grows faster than the body can adapt.

Common movement areas affected

1. Running gait problems include overstriding, heavy heel strike, and hip drop.
2. Throwing mechanics issues include poor sequencing of legs, trunk, and arm.
3. Lifting technique issues include a rounded back and knees collapsing inward.
4. Landing patterns issues include stiff legs and knees caving in.
5. Sport-specific movements like the golf swing or tennis serve compound small errors over repetition.

Correction redistributes force across the body

Joint stability

1. A joint is only as stable as the muscles around it.
2. Weak hip abductors and quad-dominant landing push the knee inward and stretch the ligaments.

Proper alignment

1. Proper alignment lets force travel through the right tissues.
2. Misalignment forces neighbouring tissues to do work they were not built for.

Resolving muscle imbalances

1. Targeted strengthening of underactive muscles paired with mobility work for overactive ones restores balance.
2. Efficient movement costs less energy, so the athlete fatigues less and is less likely to suffer the late-session injury that fatigue invites.

Technique correction in sport-specific actions

Golf

1. Poor posture at address, a twisted grip, or a wrong swing path overloads the lower back.
2. Fixing posture, grip, and rotation lets power come through the legs and trunk.

Soccer

1. A support knee that collapses inward when striking the ball loads the medial knee structures every shot.
2. Keeping the knee over the toe and strengthening hip abductors removes the maladaptation.

Basketball

1. Dynamic knee valgus on landing is one bad landing away from an ACL tear.
2. Drilling soft, knees-over-toes landings paired with hip and core strength work lowers risk.

Movement assessment and correction

Assessment stages

1. Identify the faulty movement pattern, often through slow-motion video.
2. Analyse the root cause: strength, mobility, control, or skill.
3. Develop a correction strategy that targets the specific cause.
4. Implement changes progressively, starting with simple drills and building back to the full sport movement.

Ongoing checkpoints

1. Regular form assessments built into the training calendar.
2. Video analysis of competition footage to see what holds up under pressure.
3. Expert feedback from coaches, biomechanists, and physiotherapists.
4. Gradual modification of the movement pattern, never changing everything at once.

The constraint-led approach

Three constraints

1. Performer constraints come from the athlete: strength, mobility, height, fatigue, confidence.
2. Task constraints come from the activity: rules of the game, type of ball, time pressure.
3. Environment constraints come from outside: surface, equipment, weather.

How coaches use constraints

1. The coach modifies a constraint so the faulty pattern becomes harder and the correct one becomes easier.
2. The athlete explores different movement solutions rather than copying a prescribed action.
3. Feedback is used sparingly, aimed at getting the athlete to reflect on what their body did.
4. Complexity is progressively increased once the new pattern is reliable in simple conditions.