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Muscle Sprains and Strains

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Treatment for Exercise & Sports Injuries

Medical Author: Melissa Conrad St?ppler, MD
Medical Editor: William C. Shiel Jr., MD, FACP, FACR

Sports injuries refer to the kinds of injury that occur during sports or exercise. While it is possible to injure any part of the body when playing sports, the term sports injuries is commonly used to refer to injuries of the musculoskeletal system.

Some of the most common sports injuries include:

  • Sprains—tears to the ligaments that join the ends of bones together. The ankles, knees, and wrists are commonly affected by sprains.
  • Strains—pulls or tears of muscles or tendons (the tissues that attach the muscles to the bones)
  • "Shin splints"—pain along the outside front of the lower leg, commonly seen in runners
  • Achilles tendonitisor rupture of the Achilles tendon—These injuries involve the large band of tissue that connects the calf muscles to the heel
  • Fractures of the bones
  • Dislocation of joints

Acuteinjuries usually occur suddenly while participating in sports or exercise. They may result in sudden and severe pain, the inability to bear weight on a limb, or inability to move the affected part of the body. Chronicinjuries usually result from overuse of one area of the body over a period of time. Symptoms of chronic injuries include soreness, dull aching pain, and pain during participation in physical activity.

What is the difference between a sprain and a strain?

A sprain is an injury to ligaments, while a strain is an injury to muscle or tendon tissue.

The purpose of muscles is to allow the body to move. The muscle that you feel underneath your skin is really made up of many smaller bundles of muscle fibers called fascicles. These, in turn, are made up of individual muscle fibers that are linked in a way that allows them to slide together, causing the muscle to shorten, or to slide apart, allowing the muscle to lengthen.

Muscles attach to bone directly or with a tendon. The transition of muscle to tendon happens gradually as muscle fibers give way to tendon fibers before the bony attachment occurs. Depending upon their location in the body, the tendon portion may be very short or very long. The muscle tendon unit attaches on each side of a joint so that when the muscle contracts, it shortens and pulls on the tendon, making the joint go through its range of motion.

A strain is damage caused by an overstretched muscle or tendon, causing their fibers to be pulled apart and lose the ability to contract. The severity of injury depends upon the amount of tissue that is damaged. It may be stretched or even torn. The most common cause of the injury is overuse, which weakens the muscle. Muscles and joints are forced to perform movements for which they are not prepared or designed. An injury can occur from a single stressful incident, or it may gradually arise after many repetitions of a motion. The damage can occur in three areas: the muscle itself, the muscle tendon intersection, or the tendon itself. Strains are described by the severity of damage in three grades.

Grade 1 strains usually cause stretching of a few of the muscle fibers. Grade 2 injury is more significant damage. Grade 3 injury is a complete rupture of the muscle.

Joints are stabilized by thick bands of tissue called ligaments which surround them. These ligaments allow the joint to move only in specific directions. Some joints move in multiple planes; therefore, they need more than one group of ligaments to hold the joint in proper alignment. The ligaments are anchored to bone on each side of the joint. If a ligament is stretched or torn, the injury is called a sprain.

The grading system for sprain injury is similar to that of strains. Grade 1 sprains stretch fibers of the ligament. Grade 2 sprains are injuries where part of the ligament is torn. Grade 3 sprains are when the ligament is completely torn or ruptured.



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