The Most Common Extreme Sports Injuries

While injuries are common in every sport, and indeed in most physically strenuous activities, there are some injuries that occur on a frighteningly regular basis. The vast majority of most sports injuries are considered minor or incidental, consisting mostly of sprains and pulled muscles, and are easily overcome with time and therapy. But it goes without saying – the more extreme the sport the more extreme the injury.

It’s funny to think that riding a motorcycle at almost 200 miles an hour isn’t considered an extreme sport. It sure looks extreme when the bike is bucking like a bronco in a 100-mile an hour tank-slapper or when the rider low-sides it and grinds his flesh off on the asphalt. But the most common of all motorcycle injuries is caused by high-siding the bike and having it toss the rider to the ground, snapping his collarbone – and there’s no cast for that.

Sportclimbers – those guys hanging hanging by their fingertips from rocks thousands of feet in the air – suffer lots of sprained, strained and broken fingers, as you might well imagine. Those are the good ones; the bad ones suffer lots of knee and ankle injuries from falling. No surprise there. What is a surprise is the number of armpit injuries – no, not from shaving too close but from when they fall and grab onto a rope, it slips up underneath their armpit and burns them as they slide down it. Ouch.

Motorcross riders suffer from all the same gravity-induced injuries of their track-racing brethren, they simply take it a step further – or couple hundred steps further. When you see a motorcrosser hanging on for dear life from his back fender 50 feet up in the air, it isn’t hard to imagine that every once in a while they’re not going to stick the landing. On the contrary, it’s more like they pogo-stick the landing when they come up a couple of feet short. Simply falling from that height can cause an incredible amount of damage, but these guys aren’t just falling to the ground – they’re flying into it at speed. Just one bad landing and you’ll know why they call it “extreme”.

But the trophy for the most common and agonizing extreme sport injury has got to go to the skateboarders. It doesn’t matter whether they’re wearing baggy shorts and floppy shoes or all the safety gear they can strap on, nothing – and I mean nothing – can protect them from the dreaded nard-crushing hand rail. Male or female, it doesn’t matter, you cringe when you see it on TV and you laugh your butt off when you see in person. There are no words to describe the pain of a testicular impact of that magnitude, you just have to curl up into a fetal position and wait for the nausea to subside and the feeling to return to your legs. It’s a tough price to pay for rippin’ the perfect rail, but dammit – somebody has to do it.

Guest post by Leah Gallin of Medical Assistant Schools where you can browse a medical assistant job description guide to find the right position for you.