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Athletics: Long-Distance Running

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Epidemiology of Injuries in Sports

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Abstract

Long-distance running athletes’ data on musculoskeletal injuries account for 9.2–11.9% of injuries during International Championship events in the last decade. Lower limb injuries incidence ranges between 19.4% and 79.3%, raising up to 92.4% when non-lower limb injuries were also considered. At least one-third of the recreational runners experience a minimum of one injury per season. Injuries affect predominantly the lower limbs (thigh 3.4–38.1%, knee 7.2–50%, lower leg 9–32.2%, and foot 5.7–39.3%) with similar incidence in both genders. Traumatic injuries represented almost half of the injuries in long-distance races, while overuse injuries were encountered in 69.1–69.8% of marathon runners. Except for Achilles tendinopathies, evidence for incidence of injuries in long-distance runners are not available, especially when comparing athletes from different performance levels. Prevention strategies should focus on screening athletes participating in long-distance races during the season and one month before the event interviewing dietary and menstrual history in the female athlete. Advising athletes to run a maximum of 64 km/week, adopting interval training, and increasing training distances every week (for injury knee prevention) may result in a successful preventive intervention.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. ASPETAR, Orthopaedic and Sports Medicine Hospital, Doha, Qatar

    Theodorakys Marín Fermín & Emmanuel Papakostas

Authors
  1. Theodorakys Marín Fermín
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  2. Emmanuel Papakostas
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Correspondence to Emmanuel Papakostas .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Centre of Sports Traumatology, Koelliker Hospital, TORINO, Italy

    Gian Luigi Canata

  2. Orthopedic and Sports Medicine Clinic, Montijo, Portugal

    Henrique Jones

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Marín Fermín, T., Papakostas, E. (2022). Athletics: Long-Distance Running. In: Canata, G.L., Jones, H. (eds) Epidemiology of Injuries in Sports . Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-64532-1_3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-64532-1_3

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