Injury profile in CrossFit® practitioners: Prevalence and associated factors during a year of sports practice

Abstract

This study aimed to investigate the prevalence of injuries in CrossFit® practitioners and the influence of sports practice and demographic characteristics on these injuries. A retrospective cohort study was carried out with 180 CrossFit® practitioners who answered a questionnaire with demographic characteristics (age, body mass, height, and sex), sports characteristics (number of years practicing CrossFit®; training frequency, duration, and training program; and practice of other sports), and presence of any injury suffered and its characteristics (number of injuries, region, and type of injury). The Mann-Whitney U test investigated the difference in continuous variables between those with and without injury history. The chi-square test and Fisher’s exact test investigated the association between categorical variables and the presence or not of injury over the last year. The chi-square goodness-of-fit test investigated if the frequency of injuries per body location and type differed from the expected one. Injury prevalence was 63%. Participants with a history of injury showed a shorter time of CrossFit® practice. The presence of injury history was associated with lesser weekly and daily training frequency, shorter training duration, and Scale training program. The frequency of injuries on leg, knee, lumbar spine, shoulder, and wrist, and the muscle and tendon was greater than expected. The other variables were neither different between groups nor associated with injury presence. Thus, most participants presented injury over the last year, influenced by the sports characteristics but not by demographic characteristics.