Risk Factors of Past Injuries among of the Sports Climbing Athletes Who Participated in the National Sports Festival

The purposes of this study were basic data collection and evaluation of the risk factors regarding rowing injuries through an epidemiologic study. We performed a questionnaire survey from rowers who participated in the 91th Annual Sports Festival in Jinju, Gyeongnam, in October 2010. 145 rowers (male: 84, female: 61) responded to the survey. The t-test was used for comparisons for the type of injury, age, and gender. The multiple linear regression analysis and the logistic regression analysis was used for the evaluation of risk factors. Overall, 100 (69.0%) rowers had a history of injury. The incidence of overuse injuries was significantly higher than the incidence of traumatic injuries (2.07±2.59/rower vs. 1.46±2.08/rower, p=0.027). The incidence of injuries for the adult group was significantly higher than those in the youth group (4.42±4.45/rower vs. 2.61±3.63/rower, p=0.008). There was no significant difference between males and females (3.85±4.33/rower vs. 3.08±3.87/rower, p=0.275). Also, the incidence of cross-training related injury was significantly higher in traumatic injuries rather than in overuse injuries (0.92± 1.54/rower vs. 0.5±1.07/rower, p=0.008). In addition, rowing injuries were more related with overuse injuries. Risk factors regarding overall rowing injuries were training time, and training using stairs. Traumatic injuries were related with diverse cross-training and time spent cross-training. Therefore, in order to reduce the incidence of rowing injuries, time and the number of cross-training sessions should be reduced. Moreover, highly risky training such as using stairs should be replaced with other low risk training methods.