Common sports injuries

If you're a weekend warrior, exercise enthusiast, amateur or elite athlete, or if you have a child playing youth sports, you're probably familiar with sports injuries.

They can affect just about any part of your body, including your bones, muscles, ligaments, tendons, cartilage, nerves and other tissues. Sports injuries can be the result of blunt force, falling, twisting, overuse, puncture and more.

The most common types of sports injuries include:

• Fractures – acute or stress fractures.
• Sprains.
• Soft tissue strains and tears.
• Bursitis (inflammation around the joints).
• Tendonitis (inflammation of the tendons).

Orthopedic surgeons and other sports medicine experts affiliated with HonorHealth treat all types of sports injuries. Below is a list of the most common sports injuries treated at HonorHealth.

Shoulder injuries

• Fractures.
• Broken clavicle (collar bone).
• Separated shoulder or acromioclavicular (AC) joint dislocation – when the clavicle and scapula (shoulder blade) separate.
• Shoulder dislocation – when the humerus (upper arm bone) comes out of the joint socket.
• Soft tissue injuries:
  • Rotator cuff tears.
  • Labral tears (tear to the rubbery tissue that keeps the joint in the socket).
  • Biceps tendon injuries.
  • Tendonitis.
  • Overuse injuries, particularly in children and adolescents.

Elbow injuries

• Fractures.
• Tennis elbow (lateral epicondylitis) – overuse injury affecting tendons that connect to the outside of the elbow.
• Golfer's elbow (medial epicondylitis) – overuse injury causing pain where the forearm muscles connect on the inside of the elbow.
• Ligament injuries – most common in sports that involve throwing.
• Biceps tendon and other tendon injuries.

Wrist and hand injuries

• Fractures.
• Mallet finger injuries – when jamming the finger causes the tip to drop down, looking like a mallet.
• Tendon injuries in the hand.

Hip injuries

• Fractures.
• Tendon disorders around the hip.
• Ligament injuries such as iliotibial band syndrome.
• Labral tears (tear to the rubbery tissue that keeps the joint in the socket).
• Bursitis.
• Muscle strains such as:
  • Groin pulls (adductor muscle strain).
  • Quadriceps injuries around the hip.
  • Hamstring injuries.

Knee injuries

• Fractures.
• Kneecap (patella) dislocations.
• Ligament injuries such as those affecting the:
  • Anterior cruciate ligament (ACL).
  • Posterior cruciate ligament (PCL).
  • Medial collateral ligament (MCL).
  • Lateral collateral ligament (LCL).
• Cartilage injuries:
  • Torn meniscus.
  • Osteochondral lesions.
• Tendon injuries:
  • Patellar tendonitis.
  • Iliotibial band conditions.
  • Patellar and quadriceps tendon tears.
• Bursitis.
• Anterior knee pain, related to patella tracking, strength, flexibility issues or, in some cases, structural issues.
• Pediatric conditions
  • "Osgood-Schlatter disease" – inflammation where the patellar tendon inserts into the tibia (shinbone) in children.

Ankle and foot injuries

• Fractures.
• Ankle sprains.
• Lisfranc injuries (midfoot bones are broken or tendons are torn).
• Tendon injuries (Achilles tendonitis).
• Cartilage injuries (osteochondral lesions).

See how HonorHealth specialists can help remedy your bone/joint/ligament and other sports injury issues.