Historical overview of injury prevention in traditional martial arts

At present traditional Martial Arts are very popular over the world. Martial Arts have proven positive effects on mental and physical health. However, practitioners of combat styles suffer from various injuries that can limit training effects and decrease the health benefit. This review aimed at analysing the cases, causes, and prevention of the traumas typical for the traditional and modern Martial Arts. The short historical overview was conducted for the main combat styles that originated from China, Korea, and Japan. A comprehensive search in the open databases of Web of Science, Pubmed, MEDLINE and Google Scholar was carried out (papers published in English). This review covers 100 publications from peer-reviewed journals. The article analyses the different factors in Martial Arts contributing to the injury risks from historical perspectives. The focus has been made on combat styles that have been recognized by the Olympic Committee and included in the Olympic Games, inclduing Sanda, Taekwondo, Judo, and Karate. Other styles of modern Martial Arts were out of the scope of this review. Despite the wide application of protective gear and tightening the sparring rules, the practitioners of modern martial arts have been suffering from different types of injuries, including traumas of joints, muscles, inner organs and bone fractures. Regardless of the study design and type of martial art, injuries were more frequently recorded in the area of the head, face and neck. Further studies towards the decrease of the injury rate amongst martial arts practitioners are needed.