Page 48 - Safe Wrestling

Matej Ipavec

downs may expose athletes to abrupt deceleration and forced joint po-
sitioning. One repeatedly cited mechanism involves the use of an out-
stretched arm to brace a fall during standing exchanges, thereby trans-
mitting force through the wrist, elbow, and shoulder girdle and contribut-
ing to acromioclavicular injuries and glenohumeral instability events.
Accordingly, prevention and risk reduction for upper-extremity in-
juries should be conceptualised as a combined technical and condition-
ing challenge. Recommended approaches include (Goodman et al., 2018;
Kim & Park, 2021; Powell et al., 2021):
1. technical coaching strategies aimed at reducing hazardous posting
and bracing positions during takedown defence and teaching safer
falling techniques;
2. shoulder and elbow strength/endurance programmes emphasising
scapular control, rotator cuff capacity, and dynamic elbow stabilisa-
tion; and
3. systematic workload and fatigue management, particularly for high-
er-risk subgroups such as first-year collegiate athletes and for late-
bout situations where injury likelihood appears elevated.
Injuries of the Lower Extremity
According to evidence published in 2021, lower-extremity injuries – par-
ticularly injuries involving the knee – represent one of the most con-
sistent epidemiological findings across wrestling cohorts while also ac-
counting for a substantial proportion of time-loss and severe injuries. In
men’s National Collegiate Athletic Association wrestling surveillance be-
tween the 2014–2015 and 2018–2019 seasons, the knee was identified as
the single most frequently injured body region, accounting for 21.4% of
all reported injuries. The overall injury rate was 8.82 per 1,000 athlete-
exposures, with competition injury rates substantially exceeding practice
injury rates (injury rate ratio [IRR] 4.11) (Powell et al., 2021).
Importantly, knee trauma is not only highly prevalent but also strong-
ly context dependent. Within the same surveillance report, knee injuries
constituted a substantially larger proportion of competition injuries than
practice injuries (29.76% versus 16.97%), highlighting the contribution of
match intensity, high-stakes exchanges, and fatigue-related reductions in
neuromuscular control (Powell et al., 2021; Barroso et al., 2011).
The predominance of knee involvement is further evident when anal-
yses focus specifically on higher-severity injuries. A multi-sport Nation-
al Collegiate Athletic Association severe injury analysis reported that

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