Injury Patterns among Turkish Archers

Abstract

The purpose of the present study was to identify the injury patterns that are seen among Turkish Archers. A survey study was used to collect data from archers who were taking part in the Turkish National Archery Championship. 88 archers (25 male, 13 female, 27 junior male, 23 junior female) who have taken part the Turkish Archery Championship (age: 12 - 48, x: 23.852 ± 5.719, height: 160 - 195 cm, x: 175.053 ± 8.986, body weight: 46 – 94, x: 66.013 ± 11.852, training age: 1 – 27, x: 5.060 ± 4.005) participated in this study. The archers have 4 or 5 days training sessions in a week, the duration of a single session is about 3 hours, the number of arrows they shoot ranges between 50 and 300 with the mean of 168.45, and their bow weight (drawing weight) is 18.063 kg. The most common injury among the archers is “Blisters on Drawing Fingers” with the percentage of 20. Drawing-arm shoulder also has a wide range with 11 injuries and 14.66 incidences. However, Drawing-arm elbow and achil tendon has the lowest incidence among the injury patterns. Archers have to pay attention especially to drawing - arm. Before injury; (1) they should do warming-up and stretching exercises before training session, (2) they should include strengthening weight-training programs, (3) and finally they should be careful about drawing weight of the bow and the number of arrow shot in a single session. During the injury, they should follow scientific instructions given by specialists. After injury period, the duration of any session and the intensity of training should be low.