Youth injuries?

[jeff]

I was talking last week with a young fencer (around 14) who already has ankle pain, and I have to wonder: with the recent increase in junior fencers and tournaments (both also conjectural) are people seeing more injuries in young fencers? I'm thinking mostly of overuse injuries. Any anecdotes out there?

My take is that if we are seeing more injuries in young fencers, then we need to get better and preventing them and coping with them when they happen.

[seven6ty]

I think we should go back to making every kid do footwork for a year or two before letting them fence again, I'm sure that would help.

[D+F+P=Hadouken!]

As a y-14, Cdt and Jr, I've been blessed with a plethora of injuries.

Some fencers are very injury prone, and you just have to take a Hakuna Matata attitude with them.

A smart warm up and physical preparation program can go along ways though.

[MyrddinsPrecint]

When I was 8 and doing a little ballet and a little soccer, my ankles hurt regularly enough to go to the doctor. He said there was nothing to do but ice and hope my ankles strengthened.

This was, what, 4 years before I was fencing at all?

My ankles have strengthened, but unless I had been certain that something wasn't right, and finally found custom fitted arch supports for my VERY flat feet, I would still be falling over mid-touch all the time.


Women are more prone to knee injury than Men, because our hips are wider in comparison to our other parts, which torques out the knees at a bad angle. Not only are girls often more active than they used to be, but puberty (and the hip widening) is happening earlier.

*shrug* cause/effect? causation/correlation? I dunno. Better statistics? maybe....

[SSMSabreMN]

I can attest to overuse injuries... My knee still isn't the same 4 months after a nasty hyperextention.

I (being a 14 year old female) also have patella instability, as MyrddinsPrecint brought up. I see my schools ATC almost daily and we're working on alot of different exercizes, I do notice the effect of Patella instability when I'm fencing though.

I'm injury prone... I guess... but as for the rest of my HS team, I think the worst anyones ever had is a bit of tendonitis, and it wasn't really that bad.

What I have seen kind of alot was people, Girls mainly, fainting from overheating. Happened at least once at the Midwest tournament I attended, and Once I think at my state championships... I think...

[D'Artag-NOT]

I've read about an increase in injuries in a lot of youth sports (baseball is the one that comes to my mind). Is it possible that the coaches or parents are pushing too hard or not putting enough emphasis on conditioning?

My coach, who's something of a classicist, puts a lot of emphasis on correct form and lots of footwork practice. He emphasizes the importance of form, stretching, etc., as a means of preventing injuries. And that strikes me as the exact kind of thing most preteen or teen-age fencers might skimp on if they're allowed to, since it's not nearly as much fun as bouting.

[Supermom]

Son at thirteen : Patello-femoral tendonitis which progressed to/was associated with Osgood-Schlatter's. Quite severe pain at times. Lasted for about two years, still bothers him a bit. Pulled hamstring around 15. Last year at 16 pulled first one and then a second back muscle (trying to fence through the pain) which ruined his end of season results including Summer Nationals (had to withdraw from event, should have withdrawn from the other but wouldn't). FINALLY stopped the fencing for a while and got him involved in a sports-specific physical training program in July at a fitness center affiliated with our local hospital. Fingers crossed, seems to be in much better shape this season. Many fencing clubs do not seem to stress or even offer general physical conditioning as part of the training program, including the club he was with at the time, and I think this may contribute to injuries particularly in the younger fencers who are fencing hard several times a week. We have met many young fencers who have or have had knee, ankle, back, arm and neck injuries. Some of the back problems involved herniated discs, some seemed to be associated with overdevelopment of muscles on one side of the body relative to the opposite side and consequent alignment problems, particularly in boys age 14-16. Stress fractures of the foot and ankle are not uncommon, and seem to occur more often in girls (in my experience anyway).

[qatet]

My take is that if we are seeing more injuries in young fencers, then we need to get better and preventing them and coping with them when they happen.

Which is exactly why most of the work with young kids should be non-fencing specific. General physical games building strength of muscles and joints, developing hand-eye coordination, balance, response time and, above all else, enjoyment of physical activity.

In a seminar this past summer, Professor Czajkowski pointed out that he really doesn't ever want to start teaching kids fencing until they are about 12. Before that, mostly physical games, with some bits of fencing movements. The real reason to grab the kids when they are younger is to keep them from getting sucked up by other sports.

As somebody who works primarily with 8-12-year-olds, there's a heck of a lot that just won't be there for a few more years - concentration, fine motor skills. About half of my classes are fencing related (more as they get more experienced, but that also means older). The other half is a wide variety of physical games.

[jeff]

What Supermom and others relate is scary. We don't want to be creating a generation of young fencers with early injuries that will affect them the rest of their lives. A few incidents is one thing - a growing trend is something to worry about and properly address.

qatet's comments strike me as very apt. Early youth programs should emphasize building skills that can later be used for fencing, while ensuring proper physical development. As a data point: my coach at the NYFC, Semyon Pinchasov said that the Soviet fencing system started with young children, who were given the kind of exercises that qatet and Professor Czajkowski describe, not fencing until they were older. Candidates were winnowed on the basis of their coordination and apparent aptitude to develop fencing skills later, not fencing ability they had at early age.

[MyrddinsPrecint]

My first problems were as a result of soccer and ballet. Ballet puts a lot of stress on specific muscles and bones when done correctly (technical training rather than "wave your arms now" kind of little kid dance). Soccer is a lot closer to "let the small children run around and have fun" at the 8 year old level.

How do we easily differentiate between the programs that let kids be kids and develop their physical abilities roundly--- and the sports/games that put enough specific stress on specific body parts that we shouldn't be teaching the little kids what we teach the older kids?

[Warrior Princess]

I am a 15 year old Cadette. Before I started fencing, about three years ago, I already had alot of problems with my body, but it was mostly my knees. And those were from doing too much too young. I still get overuse injuries, and most of them will never go away. This happens because I'm so hard on my body while I'm still growing. The problems that I have are scoliosis, tendonitus (both knees, both ankles, and my weapon-arm wrist), I'm really flexible, so alot of my ligaments are way too stretchy which puts alot of strain on everything else (I have that in my knees (that makes the tibia and femer grind together) and in my back, which makes my back hurt all the time). I also have almost no cartelidge in my knees, and a mass of scar tissue under my ribs on my right side. This sucks, a lot (to put it mildly). The best thing to do about youth injuries is to not do too much too young, because if they're repetitive stress injuries, they typically won't heal.

[DonnaP]

I have tried several times over the past year to get a response from anyone at USFA about what the policy is (or isn't) regarding injury documentation and reporting. I have seen many injuries first hand, including some (five total)of the infamous as well as not so infamous stabbing injuries. Two fencers stabbed in the hands at the same event in the Northeast. I inquired locally only to be told that there is NO policy that requires local event organizers to document or report these injuries to any single source at USFA or anywhere. Kind of a "if no one gets seriously hurt, no one needs to know" kind of thing. But that is the problem. If no one ever knows, there is no accurate data on type of injury, frequency, which blade, etc. If we don't collect accurate data (which includes local clubs/tournaments as well as NAC's, SN's etc.) how can we know where safety improvements truly need to be made. This is also true for our youth fencers. Injuries may be because they are growing and bodies are changing, maybe poor training techniques or not enough proper stretching, maybe because at those ages the kids are following coaching instruction about the importance of stretching, but since we don't collect data on the actual injuries - we can only speculate about why these injuries are occurring and we can't draw true correlations or conclusions . Without the data we can't help our kids or fencers in general.