Weight of Injury
Stephen Clark, PT, DPT, MHS, OCS, MBA

As the new year comes in with the bang of expectancy, people rush to sign one-year contracts with their local health clubs, vowing to lose those pesky love handles and to work their way to toned bodies.

To do so, many people lift weights because it helps them shed pounds, strengthen and tone their bodies and build endurance for daily activities and recreational sports.

But there can be a downside: injury. From 1978 to 1998, more than 980,000 people were treated in emergency departments for weight training injuries. And since 1978, the number of weight lifting injuries reported to the emergency department has increased by 35 percent.

That number may be significantly under-reported, however. After treating weight lifting injuries for years, I have yet to work with a single patient who went to the emergency department before seeing me, suggesting that the actual number of weight lifting injuries may be much higher than the literature reports.

Although we may not know the quantity of weight lifting injuries, we can still identify the types of people who are in danger of developing them.

The first group, athletic weight trainers, is best typified by the following example. Brian, a 40-year-old man who played point guard in college, lifts two to three times a week using traditional free weight exercises. He works out regularly throughout the year. When he exercises, his routine is usually organized by body part (chest, shoulders, back), and he lifts with higher loads and lower reps to promote strength, hypertrophy and power. People like Brian most often sustain traumatic sprains/strains, tendini-tis, and degenerative joint changes, typically in the shoulder, spine, elbow or knee.