Non-Seahawk Question

[QWERTY]

Sorry, didn't know where to post this but I have a question regarding injuries.

Watching baseball, basketball and football, why do most players that play football get injured a lot more than other sports?

I'm talking about non-contact injury.

 

[hgwellz12]

I have often wondered this exact same thing. Like, a day or two ago one of the Donkey's receivers went down with an ACL? injury after 2 or 3 steps into his route after the ball was snapped. Not sure how serious, but we see/hear about these flukey injuries virtually every year around this time the league over.

 

[keasley45]

Sorry, didn't know where to post this but I have a question regarding injuries.

Watching baseball, basketball and football, why do most players that play football get injured a lot more than other sports?

I'm talking about non-contact injury.

Unlike other sports that are comparably hard on the body, football is THE one where it's athletes often put on mass far exceeding what their bodies can sustain. And that's not just the case for lineman. It's wrs, TE's, RBs as well.

Skeletal structure and genetic makeup governing joint size, ligament density, etc, in most cases can't be overcome and eventually, the body will break down if it's over stressed for its structure.

You see a guy like Marshawn, who at 6' 216 lbs or whatever he was, was an unbreakable, battle tank (but for his back issues). Marshawns playing weight is likely closer to his natural weight day to day. He was just built 'big'. He wasnt DK with his shirt off. In fact, he looked a little soft. But his wrists had the girth of my mid forearm. His knees had bulk. Just overall, his frame naturally supported his build. That made him less susceptable to a soft tissue injury than a guy who is naturally, say 185lbs and has to be in the gym, 3 hours a day and racking up 4000 calories daily to maintain the extra 25 lbs in mass he needs to play RB.

Players who played with Walter Payton described him the same way - just built for the game, naturally. He was famous for not doing a ton of traditional weight training. He trained incredibly strenuously, but 'naturally' for his weight and size. But his body was just naturally built to sustain the things he was doing on the field.

Sure, that 185lb guy can bulk up to 225 by just eating suzy-q's, but if he's doing that he's also likely just sitting on the sofa playing Madden and not on a football field making sudden cuts and changes of direction that exert incredibly high forces on muscles and joints.

And with football players who've been in the gym daily from, in some cases middle school age, discerning who is 'built' naturally for the game vs who is 'artificially ' bulked to do so is hard, because from the outside, the players at a given position may look similar. But ripped and cut bodies don't tell the whole story. Nor do 'max' reps on the bench or the squat station. If the players frame and joints can't support the mass and stress, injuries are inevitable.

And with the game now being played faster and more violently than ever before ( and by violent, I'm not just talking about hits, I'm talking about reaction time / change of direction, and the forces absorbed by the knees, hips, ankles, etc as a result) injuries are only going to be more and more common.

 

[hgwellz12]

Makes a ton of sense ^^. Thanks for the reply, keasley

 

[Mick063]

There have always been injuries in pro football. They are treated differently now than they used to be. Read a book from another era, like for example, "Instant Replay" by Jerry Kramer or "Out of Their League" by Dave Meggyesy. Players routinely played with serious injuries. Coaches would scream at players to get out of the whirlpool and get back to work. The injuries haven't changed. How injuries are addressed have changed.

 

[Lagartixa]

Unlike other sports that are comparably hard on the body, football is THE one where it's athletes often put on mass far exceeding what their bodies can sustain. And that's not just the case for lineman. It's wrs, TE's, RBs as well.

Skeletal structure and genetic makeup governing joint size, ligament density, etc, in most cases can't be overcome and eventually, the body will break down if it's over stressed for its structure.

You see a guy like Marshawn, who at 6' 216 lbs or whatever he was, was an unbreakable, battle tank (but for his back issues). Marshawns playing weight is likely closer to his natural weight day to day. He was just built 'big'. He wasnt DK with his shirt off. In fact, he looked a little soft. But his wrists had the girth of my mid forearm. His knees had bulk. Just overall, his frame naturally supported his build. That made him less susceptable to a soft tissue injury than a guy who is naturally, say 185lbs and has to be in the gym, 3 hours a day and racking up 4000 calories daily to maintain the extra 25 lbs in mass he needs to play RB.

Players who played with Walter Payton described him the same way - just built for the game, naturally. He was famous for not doing a ton of traditional weight training. He trained incredibly strenuously, but 'naturally' for his weight and size. But his body was just naturally built to sustain the things he was doing on the field.

Sure, that 185lb guy can bulk up to 225 by just eating suzy-q's, but if he's doing that he's also likely just sitting on the sofa playing Madden and not on a football field making sudden cuts and changes of direction that exert incredibly high forces on muscles and joints.

And with football players who've been in the gym daily from, in some cases middle school age, discerning who is 'built' naturally for the game vs who is 'artificially ' bulked to do so is hard, because from the outside, the players at a given position may look similar. But ripped and cut bodies don't tell the whole story. Nor do 'max' reps on the bench or the squat station. If the players frame and joints can't support the mass and stress, injuries are inevitable.

And with the game now being played faster and more violently than ever before ( and by violent, I'm not just talking about hits, I'm talking about reaction time / change of direction, and the forces absorbed by the knees, hips, ankles, etc as a result) injuries are only going to be more and more common.

There's a related issue. A human body can't recover from three hours of gym work per day, even consuming 4000 calories, without some help in the form of exogenous hormones.

 

[keasley45]

There's a related issue. A human body can't recover from three hours of gym work per day, even consuming 4000 calories, without some help in the form of exogenous hormones.

Yup. It's a vicious cycle most of these guys are on to stay in the form that's gotten them the performance they need.

And some are 'stretched' further beyond their genetic limits than others.

All of them are subjecting their bodies to extreme stresses. You take a guy like Jamal Adams. The forces required to tear your quad muscle from the bone are pretty extraordinary, unless theres some genetic flaw at play. His uncanny ability to react the way he does and get his body to follow what his senses tell it to do at the speed a guy like him does it... sometimes there's a price to pay. There's a reason he stood out among the rest and was such a force when he arrived. He can simply do things others cant. In this case, not even his body could keep up.