Frequency of wrist growth plate injury in young gymnasts at a training center

Abstract

Objective: To assess the frequency of physeal injuries and wrist pain in young competitive gymnasts according to their training characteristics. Methods: This is a cross-sectional study (January-June 2015) of a male gymnastics team in São Paulo, SP, Brazil. Nineteen gymnasts, mean age 13.3 years, were evaluated in three ways: A questionnaire, physical examination and radiographs. Results: On average, they trained since 6 years-old and during hours per week. Eighty- -two percent had wrist pain and 65% had wrist physeal injury. The pain was worse in practitioners of (82%) and soil (17%) exercises. A greater frequency of physeal injury was found in those with more years of training and higher weekly working hours, wrist pain was more frequent in those with higher weekly working hours, and a decreased range of motion was observed in those with physeal injury, results statistically significant. Conclusions: We found that 65% of gymnasts had wrist physeal injury and 82% had wrist pain. There were statistically significant relationships between physeal injury and years of training, physeal injury and weekly working hours, pain and weekly working hours, and physeal injury and range of motion.