September 29
Springboard injuries target extremities
Do a Medline search on diving injuries, and most of what turns up will involve scuba, not springboard. Diving from a springboard or platform, as Olympic athletes do, is infrequently associated with injuries, but they can happen and they can be serious.Diver Jenny Keim of the U.S. team, who placed eighth in the women's springboard competition, actually switched career paths from gymnastics to diving in order to decrease her risk of injury. Keim trained at Bela Karolyi's gym in Houston from age six to eight, when she suffered a stress fracture to her spine and was advised to pursue a less traumatic sport. Still, Keim had to battle a partially torn tricep muscle through the Olympic Trials. That injury was serious enough given that every dive requires the arms to be extended over the head and the strength of that arm movement is critical to achieving rotational speed during a twisting dive. Most injuries associated with springboard diving occur at either point of impact-where the foot hits the board during takeoff, or where the hands hit the water upon entry. Researchers from Boston reported on two cases of male springboard divers who suffered subtalar fractures during dives starting from a standing back position. One diver struck the board in mid-dive with the plantar surface of his hindfoot; the other landed on his hindfoot when he returned to the board after an aborted take-off. Plain-film x-rays were insufficient to diagnose either injury, but CT revealed a fracture of the undersurface of the talus involving the subtalar joint in both cases. The findings were published in the American Journal of Sports Medicine in 1996. In the early days of competitive diving, athletes entered the water with both fists closed, the thumb of one hand tucked into the fist of the other. The modern open-handed technique makes for a smoother entry but puts the athlete at greater risk of hand and wrist injuries. In a series of 21 divers, researchers from Cochin Hospital in Paris found that 18 athletes reported pain caused by the impact of the hand with the water. Injuries included two fractures and five sprains. The results were published in the September 1993 issue of the Journal of Hand Surgery.
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