Kickboxing Injuries Trends Analysis

Since the principal purpose of a kickboxing fight is to land strikes more often and decisively than your opponent, both severe and habitual injuries may be anticipated.

Data is insufficient with respect to the kind and harshness of constant injuries among kickboxers.

Regardless, acute damage trends have been clarified in various analyses and case reports.

Researchers concentrated on injuries among experienced kickboxers and reviewed fighting injuries that occurred from 1985 to 2001 recorded in an Australian combat sports database. Of the 3,481 fighters, a sum of 382 injuries was analyzed. Participation in a fight was characterized as one kickboxer’s exposure to one match.

Most Typical Injuries

Damage to the head, face, and neck area was the most typical injury in this analysis. About 52% of all damage dealt with this anatomic area, which summed up to about 57 such injuries per 1,000 fighters.

The second most expected area of damage was the lower extremity, which accounted for almost 40% of all damage or about 44 such injuries per 1,000 fighters.

Damage To The Lower Leg

Even though the head, face, and neck regions were the most typically injured areas, the precise body part that was most generally damaged was the lower leg. Practically 26 lower-leg damage was monitored per 1,000 fighters.

Damage To The Face

The second most typical location was the face, with roughly 21 facial injuries per 1,000 fighters. Around half of the fighters that ended up injured were involved in a knockout or needed a stoppage of the contest by the referee. Of the fighters that were involved in an injury, just 30% resulted in a victory for those kickboxers that were hurt.

Trivial Damage Sustained

As far as the kind and rate of damage sustained, trivial wounds (e.g., bruises) were most typical. Approximately 40% of all damage involved basic wounding, which is about 43 such injuries per 1,000 fighters. Open injuries(e.g., gashes) were the second most typical, with almost 25% of all damage or roughly 27 such injuries per 1,000 fighters.

Brain Damage

Brain damage, which comprised concussions, was subsequent at 18% of all damage or almost 19 such injuries per 1,000 fighters. Breaks and internal damage were the least typical. These results emphasized the reality of kickboxing. The lower body is frequently employed to both give and take violent strikes, while your dome is a typical mark.

Injury To Amateur Kickboxers

Concentrating on the damage sustained by amateur kickboxers, researchers evaluated future types and rates of damage related to competition. Among 92 Thai kickboxers who accounted for about 590 min of fight time, 15 injuries were discovered.

The Four Categories Of Injury

These are the four categories of injury types:

• nosebleed (six happenings)
• concussions, head trauma (six happenings)
• head laceration (two happenings)
• leg contusion (one happening)

Controversy Over The Scoring System

The investigators asserted that the scoring system in Thai kickboxing might have contributed to the bulk of head trauma. Since head blows are scored higher and had the potential to end the fight early through a knockout, fighters might have been driven to target the head more. Opposite to professional fighters, amateurs in this analysis had moderately little damage to the lower body area. This might have been linked to the required use of shinguards among amateur fighters.

Of the 12 female fighters in the research, none received a noticeable injury. This was hypothesized to be because of a discrepancy in strength generation, technique implementation, and aggression as likened to the men. Another point of view in the study of 148 amateur fighters in Thai kickboxing commented on the kind and the amount of damage that resulted in match stoppage. Twenty-three of the 74 entire fights (31%) were ceased because of injury. Fifteen (65%) of all matches ended with injuries caused by concussion, four (17%) were from lower body injuries, three (13%) were because of blunt force trauma to the thoracoabdominal area, and one injury was an ocular injury from a punch. The ratio of fights stopped because of concussions was remarkably more than that of all other causes put together.

These results turned out to be a direct link to the point that head kicks were given a higher score and a win was achieved very easily by knockout. Nevertheless, female kickboxers in this analysis received damage. Also, there was no substantial distinction in the volume of fights stopped because of concussions between males and females.

Lower Body Damage

With respect to lower body damage that needed match stoppage, half were due to strong kicks affecting the receiving kickboxer’s lateral knee. Postfight assessments were highly questionable for internal irregularity of the knee. The other lower body damage concerned weakening thigh contusions. All fights were stopped because of thoracoabdominal trauma rendered by knee strikes.

Although direct force to this location may raise one’s chance for lung collapse, heart tissue injury, damage to the inner abdominal, and possible fetal damage among pregnant fighters, such damage occurs rather seldom in sports. Similarly, no such damage was seen among the kickboxers in this analysis. Another examination was performed in which 152 Thai kickboxers were questioned in the UK and Holland.

Damage Based On Skill Level

The kickboxers who had at least one year of training were ranked based on competitive experience:

• novice (i.e., no contact permitted)
• amateur (i.e., full contact authorized but headgear, mouthguards, elbow pads, boxing gloves, body protection, groin protection for males, and shinguards were mandated)
• experienced (i.e., full contact authorized with only mouthguards, groin protection for males, and boxing gloves used for safety).

The amount of damage documented was directly proportional to experience, wherein novice fighters had the least and expert fighters the greatest.

Lower-body injuries were declared the most frequent among all experience levels in this analysis. It coincided with three-fourths of the damage received among novice fighters, almost two-thirds of the damage among amateurs, and about half the damage for professionals. As far as the kinds of lower body damage received, there were around 780 happenings of shin contusions, 298 happenings of thigh contusions, and almost 100 happenings of foot contusions.

Among expert fighters, fractures were unsurprisingly more standard because the protective gear was not mandated, training might have been more extreme, and impact forces were also likely higher than that among less skilled kickboxers. Head concussions accounted for roughly 2%, 31%, and 43% of all damage received among newbies, amateur fighters, and professionals, respectively. The low rate among novice fighters was linked to the noncontact requirement of their participation.

Head concussions were the second most typical injuries among amateurs and experts. In regards to the kinds of head damage received, there were reportedly 545 happenings of head and neck contusions, 158 happenings of head and neck cuts, 40 happenings of nosebleeds, and 22 happenings of nasal breaks. Similar to the previous research, head and lower body damage were also the two most typically documented acute damage categories.

The Kidney And Liver

In an endeavor to establish the results of Thai kickboxing on kidney and liver function, researchers acquired blood serum and urine specimens from 10 inactive teenage males and checked the outcomes to those of 10 teenage male Thai kickboxers.

Even though the standard age was less than 16 years, those in the kickboxing group were identified as experienced fighters. The kickboxing group showed remarkably higher densities of enzymes for healthy muscles as well as higher levels of tissue in liver & skeletal muscles after training and competition, unlike the inactive teens. These results indicated that muscle cell injury transpired during training and competition. Yet, there was no definitive proof that training or competition jeopardized kidney or liver function.

Kickboxer Injuries In Medical Publications

Many case reports concerning kickboxing-connected damage have been printed in medical publications. During a world championship fight, a kickboxer acquired numerous blows to his left thigh. Six hours after the contest, he showed increasingly aggravating thigh pain. Based on this pain, a tight anterior thigh, and heightened tension, he was diagnosed with acute compartment syndrome. The mid part of his left vastus lateralis was discovered to be ruptured and 300 ml of blood was removed from the thigh during a fasciotomy. He was released from the hospital nine days later and continued his kickboxing profession within one year.

There was an account of a kickboxer who experienced a very traumatic dissection of his left major neck artery. While sparring with full protective equipment, the kickboxer caught a kick to his left jaw. He later acquired stroke-like symptoms including slurred speech, slow pupillary reaction to light, left sixth cranial nerve disease, and a left facial sag. Computed tomography of his head showed diffuse subarachnoid bleeding and blood in the fourth chamber.

Cerebral imaging uncovered an intracranial fusiform pseudoaneurysm of the left neck artery. The pseudoaneurysm was addressed endovascularly, the kickboxer was put into rehabilitation, and his deficiencies were fixed within three months of the injury.

There’s another case of dissection performed because of a kick, although this spell concerned the internal carotid artery. Another account mentioned a separate first rib fracture obtained by a fighter during a kickboxing contest. The kickboxer showed piercing discomfort in the right shoulder, which started during the fight. His first radiographs were normal but the pain he was in had continued for more than four weeks. Following the four weeks after the fight, the next setup of imaging analyses performed verified the above diagnosis. Even though his symptoms eventually settled after six months, severe aftereffects of his state comprise the aortic arch aneurysm, tracheoesophageal fistula, pneumothorax, brachial plexopathy, periclavicular abscess formation, and subclavian artery rupture.

Another kickboxer ruptured his left EPL tendon. He suffered the damage by executing reverse press-ups as part of his kickboxing training program. This workout exerted the back of the hands and included wrist hyperflexion. His ruptured EPL could not be repaired, but an extensor indicis proprius transfer allowed for the full rehabilitation of finger movement by eight weeks after the operation.

Davis and colleagues surveyed participants in kickboxing exercise classes.[35] Of 572 surveys reviewed, the researchers discovered that instructors had a slightly higher rate of injury as compared to students. A significant relationship existed between the occurrence of injury and the number of days of participation. The most common sites injured, in descending order, were the back, knees, hips, and shoulders.

About half the injured fighters wanted medical treatment. Almost two-thirds of the injured fighters had to adjust their day-to-day activity routines because of injury. Even though this investigation didn’t particularly tackle competitive kickboxing injuries, it did infer injury tendencies for those involved in the basics of kickboxing workouts (e.g., shadowboxing, and calisthenics exercises). As such, these results may be most applicable to novices who are beginning training.

Likewise, the results reinforced the need for individuals to warm up before participating, increase exercise intensity gradually, and recover sufficiently between sessions to decrease their risk for injury and overtraining.

We hope you found this report on Kickboxer’s injuries insightful. If you have anything to add from your own experience or someone you know, please share and help other readers get the facts.