Popular gym fitness sport – an analysis of 1378 recreational athletes regarding injury prone exercises and the corresponding localizations-

Abstract

Abstract Recreational fitness sport is popular worldwide and ranks first among organized sports. Despite such great numbers of participants, there is little scientific work that deals with the injury behavior in mass fitness sports. This study attempts to fill this gap by examining which exercises may be most prone to injury and analyzes the body regions that are most frequently affected. Using an online questionnaire distributed nationally across Germany, 20 demographic and training-specific items and 49 sport-specific exercises were recorded. Frequent exercises, as well as the incidence and distribution of pain symptoms that the athletes experienced during or in relation to their training were evaluated. A total of 1378 respondents were included in this study. N = 732 (53,1%) (f = 333 (24,2%), m = 397 (22,3%)) indicated to have had pain in relationship to their fitness training. The way the training plan was created showed a significant influence (p = 0): Those athletes who create a plan on their own, report complaints more often than the comparison groups. Guided exercises on machines led to complaints the least often (11.54%). Exercises with free weights cause the most complaints among respondents (19.94%). We were able to identify exercises such as back squat, deadlift, bench press and triceps dips as the most pain associated exercises. The most common pain region was the shoulder followed by the lower back and knee. The present work is the first large-scale study to examine the injury behavior of recreational athletes in fitness sports. The results show a considerably high number of unreported pain symptoms.