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Psychological contributions to athletic injuries
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In sports today, big hits and fighting seems to be a source of worship for most spectators. From events like boxing to football, most people only focus on the protective side of the issue when it comes to injuries, but fail to look at the big picture. Therefore, the lack of protection in sports is not the cause of injuries in athletes; instead useless protective gear and the athlete’s behavior are the causes of injuries to a player.
Protective gear provides no safeguard against injuries. Many organizations preach “protection for athletes,” but they orate fiction. In reality, “Helmets, mouth guards do nothing to prevent concussions, report says” (Livingstone S2). Players rely too much on equipment, when in fact, protective gear is useless. Sports have protection, yet injuries still occur. Sports such as football contain protection ranging from mouth guards to knee-pads, however there are multiple injuries sustained. This example shows that protective equipment is insufficient to athletes.
This protective gear is of no use to athletes. Most of their important gear, such as helmets and pads, are not beneficial to a players overall well-being. This protection provided is supposed to provide a safeguard against injuries, but instead serves as useless piece of an athlete’s attire. This gear players wear today should be thrown away and sent to the dumps. Players have the same amount of protection when playing bare of equipment, exemplifying the worthlessness of protective gear. Protective gear only has one use, and that is for helping keep garbage dumps in business. This gear has no helpful attributes, and deserves no place whatsoever in the sporting world.
Not only is inadequate protective gear to blame, the behavior of athletes is ano...
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...it is the behavior of players as well as insufficient equipment that are culpable. Future generations’ careers are being ruined by injuries due to these reasons. To protect future generations, society needs to focus on the real issues that help protect and create a better future for athletes across the world.
Works Cited
Dillon, Dennis. “A Crippling, Rippling, Effect.” Sporting News. 231. 40. 2007:14. Ebscohost. Web. 16 Oct. 2013.
George III, Louie St. “Prep Sports Notebooks: Injuries Unfortunate, but Inevitable in Football.” Duluth News-Tribune (MN). 12 Sept 2013: n pag. Ebscohost. Web. 10 Oct.
2013
Kozlowski, James C. “Majority “Baseball Rule” Limits Spectator Liability.” Parks & Recreation. 48. 5. 2013:24. Ebscohost. Web. 15 Oct. 2013.
Livingstone, Andrew. “When Protective Gear Isn’t.” Toronto Star (Canada). 2013: pg S2. Ebscohost. Web. 27 October 2013.
The article shares with the reader that children who join competitive sports at a young age can learn discipline and healthy habits when performed right. Jordan strongly suggests athletes, coaches and parents need to be properly educated on safe training techniques and know how to read their children when they have an injury. This way the young athletes can join in on as many sport teams as they want. Over the recent years many regulations and laws have been passed, such as The Lystedt laws that “mandate a gradual return-to-play protocol to better protect youth athletes in all sports from the risks of preventable concussions”(Jordan). This will protect the players who do decide to specialize in one sport at an early
Are current equipment regulations enough to keep our hockey athletes safe? I ask this after the life threatening injury that recently occurred here in Buffalo. However this isn’t the first time that the NHL (National Hockey League) has seen injuries of this magnitude. What were these injuries? How did they affect the NHL rules? What kind of rules are in place today? What is the NHL doing about neck guards? These questions and more will be answered as we take a look into NHL injuries, the history of equipment regulations, current equipment regulations, and the debate over neck guards.
R, Elvik, and Kim k. "Accident Analysis & Prevention." Body-contact sports: Catharsis or reinforcement?. 6.1 (1974): 85-91. Print
2014 Issues Analysis By Dino Nuker Sport Safety: Should headgear be made mandatory for all contact sports? Injuries are common in most sports that have a contact component attached. Whether it’s at a professional level, or a school level, injuries are always bound to occur in contact sport. This analysis will look into the role headgear could, should and would play, and debates whether it should be made mandatory. Olympic sports such as Ice Hockey, Bicycle Riding and Baseball are just some examples that currently require athletes to wear a form of headgear.
Are young children putting their health and even their lives at risk if they partake in the sport of football? Some claim that the American sport is far too dangerous and the risk of concussions and injuries far outway the pros of the physical sport, while others insist that technological improvements and new regulations have made the sport safer. Jonathan Zimmerman, a professor of history and education at New York University, argues in his paper, “We Must Stop Risking the Health of Young Football Players,” that football is a sport that is too dangerous for the youth. He states his belief that technological improvements in helmets and changes in the rules of the sport have had little effect on reducing injuries and that nothing has worked.
For the safety of the players in the present and future, a stricter concussion protocol should be required at all levels of football. Though improvements have been made, the game of football is constantly changing and the protocol needs to keep up with the changes. Today’s athletes are bigger, stronger, and faster than ever before: "Size and physical conditioning techniques in sports at all levels have evolved to create an intense athlete. They 're able to create more force, power and speed than ever before and that leads to harder hits and a greater number of hits" (Neporent). These advances in training have led to a more dangerous sport. The protocol has improved in recent years along with an emphasis on player safety, but the increasing numbers of players with long-term effects of concussions show there is still work to be done.
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B. Research Questions The research questions being proposed in this paper include but are not limited to the following: How well do helmets prevent concussions from occurring and prevent the development of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE)? Is there one helmet that is better at protecting players against concussions than the others on the market? Is there any protective equipment besides helmets that football players should be wearing to prevent concussions? What is the current National Football League (NFL) concussion protocol?
Since football’s inception, it has been considered a manly sport. Young boys have been encouraged by their parents to participate in the game. For many boys, it is considered a rite of passage. However, football is a dangerous sport. A study conducted by the Center for Injury Research and Policy found, “an estimated 5.25 million football-related injuries among children and adolescents between 6 and 17 years of age were treated in U.S. emergency departments between 1990 and 2007. The annual number of football-related injuries increased 27 percent during the 18-year study period, jumping from 274,094 in 1990 to 346,772 in 2007” (Nation 201). These reported injuries include sprains and strains, broken bones, cracked ribs, torn ligaments, and concussions. A concussion usually happens when a player takes a hard hit to the head or is knocked unconscious on the playing field, and if not diagnosed and treated quickly, a concussion can result in death.
Technology has improved innumerable sectors in industries such as sports. Stadiums, scoreboards, sound systems, training facilities, athletic wear, and protective equipment have been upgraded over the last few decades. Specifically, technology has improved protective equipment to keep athletes safe. Currently, some of the most worrisome injuries are concussions and other head injuries; they occur in all different types of sports and activities, but the highest amount of head injuries occur in football (Stone). For this reason, protective headgear is of the highest importance for professional and nonprofessional football players. New discoveries about brain injuries have made a priority to protect the head.
Across numerous sports in the world, helmets are a staple of safety. Assumed to be a benefit, most athletes do not consider the risks of a helmet; both mental and physical risks. Society tells us that no matter what; a helmet will be safer than being exposed to harmful elements. There is also the idea that helmets are beneficial, but the way athletes use them causes more injuries than if a helmet had not been used at all. This culture, using your helmet as a tool, encourages more risky behavior for helmet wearers. Adventure writer and pilot, Lane Wallace argues that football culture is to blame for current helmet use, and that helmets are beneficial in her article “Do Sports Helmets Help or Hurt?” In his article “Disposable Heroes”, Neurologist David Weisman reasons that the worst helmets might be a better solution than better helmets.
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