What Is An Overuse Injury

What is An Overuse Injury?

Overuse injuries come from repeated load during an action or task that goes beyond the point of fatigue. They are the most common form of soft-tissue injuries in athletes, especially in the adolescent group. Over-use injuries can develop due to both external factors (what happens around us) and intrinsic factors (what’s inside us) and understanding which of these factors resulted in your injury will also guide you in preventing future injuries.

Common Overuse Injuries

There are many structures which can experience overuse injury such as:

• Muscles e.g. strains
• Bone Stress Injuries (e.g. “shin splints” or “stress fractures”)
• Tendon – e.g. Tendinopathy
• Bursa – e.g. Bursitis

Muscles

Overuse injuries are typically categorised as muscle strains. Every muscle has a point of fatigue and you will tend to feel weakness when you hit that stage. Purposely pushing through fatigue can put you at a higher risk of overusing your muscles and result in injury. Strains are classified into 3 separate grades with 1 being the lowest form and 3 being the highest and most severe.

Other forms of overuse injuries in muscles include: chronic compartment syndromes and myofascial pain (pain relating to the fascia wrapped around your muscles)

Bone Stress Injuries (BSIs)

Commonly known as “shin splints” or stress fractures. BSIs can cause significant pain during activity and if severe enough they can become painful at rest. They occur if a bone is either repeatedly loaded without giving it a chance to recover for the next bout of exercise or if it is excessively loaded without prior conditioning. Due to Adolescents skeletal immaturity, they are especially susceptible to BSIs on the bottom of their heels (Known as Sever’s Disease) or in the Knee (Known as Osgood-Schlatters Disease).

Internal risk factors for developing BSIs include having muscle imbalances or weakness, lacking mobility, size, weight and genetics. While, external risk factors include training errors (such as excessive weight/reps/frequency), lack of recovery, training surfaces, shoes, equipment and environmental factors.

Tendinopathy

Tendinopathy relates to tendon pain associated with a sudden increase or change in your training volume or intensity. Tendons don’t respond well to a sudden or quick change and can be shocked into creating negative adaptations to the tendon structure if an exercise is repeated or progressed too vigorously. If you catch your tendon pain quickly, there is a chance to deload and allow the tendon to heal before the pain becomes more problematic

Bursitis

Your bursa are like water-balloons that lie between a muscle tendon and the joint it crosses over. Its purpose is to aid the movement of the tendon over the joint and reduce friction. Occasionally, bursa can become inflamed from repetitive compression or shearing forces and can often be coupled with a Tendinopathy.

Key to managing an Overuse Injury

• Rest during initial phase of injury is important to allow the inflammation and following symptoms settle
• Addressing any relevant external factors will help you figure out what you can change to improve your pain or reduce the risk of developing it again
• A graded strength and conditioning program will help your tissue become more resilient to future episodes

If you think you are experiencing any of these issues, one of our physiotherapists can help you determine what is causing your pain and how to get back to full health.