1 What is sport injury?

Before you begin to investigate the psychological aspects, let’s first explore more about sport injury. As its name suggests a sport injury refers to an injury that is sustained during – or as a result of – sport or physical activity. It is important to note that throughout the course we use the term ‘sport injury’ to refer to injuries sustained in both sport and exercise settings. There are various types of sport injury, which can broadly be split into ‘acute’ and ‘chronic’ injuries. The next activity explains what these are.

Activity 1 Types of sport injury

Allow about 15 minutes

Watch Video 1 below and then read the ‘Introduction’ section of the article Sports Injuries to explore some of the causes and types of sport injury. (You can open the link in a new tab by holding down Ctrl [or Cmd on a Mac] when you click the link.)

Video 1

Transcript

Now match each of the terms below with the appropriate definition.

An individual suffers a broken leg as a result of a tackle during a football match

Acute injury

An individual suffers a stress fracture after increasing their mileage

Chronic injury

Using the following two lists, match each numbered item with the correct letter.

1. An individual suffers a broken leg as a result of a tackle during a football match

2. An individual suffers a stress fracture after increasing their mileage

1. 1

   Acute injury

2. 2

   Chronic injury

The correct answers are:

• 1 =
• 2 =

Discussion

There are several sport injuries that can be experienced by a sport or exercise participant, but they can all be classified as either acute or chronic. An acute injury is one that develops as a result of a sudden impact, whilst a chronic injury develops over time. Both acute and chronic injuries can be linked with psychological factors as we will explore in this session and throughout this course.