Author: Boston smiles
Published: Fall 2003
This article is meant to educate and inform, but the author (bostonsmiles), a 23 year old physical therapy student in Boston, maintains that this list is not all-inclusive and is not meant as an end-all. If you have any questions ask your doctor. This is just made from four diagnoses that I have observed from the T/T forum. I do trick and I have personally encountered some of these injuries as well, so I know that they are common in our specific population.
Osgood-Schlatter disease is a traction apophysitis of the proximal tibial tuberosity at the insertion of the patellar tendon. It occurs particularly commonly in athletes involved in jumping sports (such as basketball and gymnastics) because jumping places great stress on the tibial tuberosity through repetitive contraction of the quadriceps muscle.
In English: Every time you jump you use your quadriceps muscles (the muscles on the front of your thighs). Muscles work by pulling on bones to move your body. The muscle pulls on the knobby thing on the front of your shin (tibial tuberosity). If you are young, around 14 years, OS is most common because that is when your bones are still forming and the growth plate on your tibia is most likely to be yanked off. Tricksters older than 17 are at less risk for this because the growth plate has already sealed and there is no longer cartilage there, but bone!
To tell if you have this condition do a squat. Does it hurt? Are you a 13-14 year old boy or 12-year-old girl? Does it hurt specifically on your tibia at that knobby thing? Does it go away when you rest? If yes to all of these questions you should talk to your doctor. If your bones grow faster than your muscles it makes your muscles tighter, so think back if you've had a growth spurt. If its red and warm over that knobby bone on your tibia then it may not be OS because redness and warmth indicates an inflammatory problem (stress fracture of the tibia or osteomyletitis).
Stretch it, ice it, use anti-inflammatory drugs (Aleve, Aspirin), and wear a kneepad. Remember - it resolves over time (6-18 months).
Don't stop tricking or immobilize your joint. You are supposed to stretch it (remember).
The ACL stands for the anterior cruciate ligament. This ligament keeps your shin bone from moving forward in relation to your thigh bone.
The typical mechanism is twisting or hyperextension while the foot is planted and the knee extended. ACL injuries often are accompanied by other injuries, particularly involving the MCL and menisci - I will discuss those later.
Direct trauma- You play around with your friends and one tackles your shin bone from behind pushing your bone in front of your thigh. You hear a loud pop, it swells up, and you can't walk. Oh yeah and it hurts like a bitch.
You get an ACL injury by continuing two butterfly twists without un weighting your foot enough, thus your foot is planted but you are changing direction. Or a sideswipe landed short in the same manner.
The meniscus is the fibrocartilage between the long thigh bone and the shin bone. It helps with shock absorption and with smooth gliding of the joint. When you tear this you get locking and a loss of the smooth motion at the knee (yeah sucks doesn't it). You get it by twisting with the foot fixed - a lot like the ACL injury above. Duck waddling aggravates it (which is why I don&'t do those Russian Squat exercises).
Meniscus injuries are caused when the athlete twists the leg while bearing weight. Meniscus injuries are sometimes described as torn cartilage or a locked knee. The mechanisms for meniscus injuries are similar to those of ACL injuries, these injuries often occur together (surprise, surprise!).
No age group is more likely or less likely to get it in the trickster demographic, but in my opinion, the older you are and the more advanced tricks you pull, the more likely you are to land and twist your knee. If you get this, you may even have to get surgery; So jump high and stick your landings fiercely.
If you get this stop tricking as much and avoid pain. Use ice for your pain, see a doctor, and they will probably recommend physical therapy for strengthening the muscles around the joint to provide stability before surgery. Eventually they may need to cut up the free pieces so that it doesn't cause more damage.
Ankle, hip, knee ligament sprains. If you make a mistake, are not warmed up, or are just unlucky one day you may seriously sprain any of the ligaments that hold your joints in place and limit your range of motion into certain positions. It is beyond the scope of this one article to tell you all of them. Since they usually subside in 4-6 weeks after swelling and pain; You should just ice, rest it, and go easy on the joint. Ligaments have a blood supply so they can heal. Cartilage usually is in a joint capsule so it does not have a blood supply. Without the blood supply cartilage doesn't heal. Don't worry, everybody gets hurt. If it keeps hurting and it is too painful to walk, or if you can see the ligament, then you should get medical attention; (Doh). In my experience as a trickster and a bboy I have suffered only a few mild injuries - inguinal hernia, ankle strains, a labral tear in the hip, a TFCC tear, and a cervical spine instability. The key is to not give up and to realize that you can lose the battle one day, but win the war in the end. Good luck and good tricking.