Overuse Foot and Ankle Injuries in Gymnasts
Foot and ankle injuries can occur during various sports, but a shoe or cleat may protect the foot from more severe injuries. However, some sports are performed barefoot, such as gymnastics. Gymnasts have high demands on their feet and ankle, especially when landing their skills on vault, bars, floor, and beam. Gymnastics places high impact forces and high repetitions on growing young athletes. Gymnasts train all year and are therefore susceptible to overuse injuries.
Sever’s Disease in Gymnasts
Many young kids that participate in sports can have complaints of pain in their heels. This is more common in children who are actively growing and those who are very active in running and jumping sports. Young gymnasts fall into this category, and they also practice and compete barefoot, which can lead to a higher risk of injury to the foot.
How to Heal Heel Pain
Heel pain is a common complaint that can have several causes. This type of pain can affect your ability to stand and walk due to the pressure on the sore area. And at times, if your feet hurt you might feel like you hurt all over. Your normal activities can be greatly affected if you are unable to walk without pain.
Common Overuse Injuries in Young Athletes
Children are susceptible to certain injuries because their growth plates are still open. Sever’s Disease, Osgood-Schlatter or Sinding-Larson-Johannsen (SLJ), and Little League Elbow are just a few diagnoses that children can acquire at the growth plates. Typically children diagnosed with these injuries are very active in sports, which may cause the overuse injury in the growth plate.
Sever’s Disease in Young Gymnasts
Heel pain is common in young children and it can be attributed to a condition called Sever’s disease.
Sever’s disease, which is also referred to as calcaneal apophysitis, is a result of inflammation of the growth plate of the heel. It is common in children who play sports that involve running or jumping, such as soccer, football, basketball and gymnastics. Gymnasts, however, are particularly affected due to the high level of jumping from a young age and because they are often barefoot when running and jumping.
