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In softball and baseball, weekend jocks fracture ankles and dislocate shoulders sliding into bases, their leg muscles get strained from sprinting, and shoulder muscles tear from pitching. "Throwing one's arm out" is no mere figure of speech. Dr. James Purdy, emergency-room physician at Northside Hospital in Atlanta, recalls one softball player who threw the ball so hard he shattered his upper arm bone. A hard-hit ball can have a shattering effect of its own when hand-eye coordination fails.
Touch football, swimming, skateboarding, scuba diving, hang gliding, golf, skiing, riding, surfing, bowling, basketball, volleyball—all sports have their share of problems. But more and more injuries are the outcome of America's newest athletic addiction: running. Appropriately, the damage tends to occur from the ground up. A typical distance runner's foot strikes the ground 1,000 times a mile each seven to ten minutes, and the force of impact is about three times his weight. The shock wave travels from heel through ankle to lower leg, knee, upper leg, hip and lower back. Ill effects are legion. Every runner sooner or later is likely to suffer from a sprained or twisted ankle, knee inflammation, stress fracture of the leg bone, shin splints, hamstring pulls, low-back pain, heel pain or blood blister of the toes. Says Berson: "Our ancestors evolved by running barefoot across a grassy plain to escape saber-toothed tigers. The human leg is not designed for running long distances on cement."
It is years since sedentary jokers could get away with the line: "I get enough exercise acting as a pallbearer to my friends who exercise." Regular exercise can help make one healthier. The injuries result from the delusion that a few hours of sports are helpful. Eighty percent of the troubles could be avoided, doctors point out, with some simple precautions. According to Dr. Dinesh Patel, co-director of Massachusetts General Hospital's Sports Medicine Clinic, "Sixty percent of athletic injuries could be prevented by training and warmup, another 20% by proper shoes and prescreening for tight joints or other abnormalities." Doctors also recommend a complete physical (including the treadmill stress test) for anyone over 35 before any form of exercise is begun. In selecting a sport, weight, body build and general flexibility must be considered. Fat people should forsake jogging in favor of sports like swimming that mitigate the effects of gravity. Women are looser jointed than men, therefore less likely to suffer muscular strains and tendinitis, but are more susceptible to joint problems.
No matter what the sport, it should be worked into gradually with a warmup of slow stretches preceding activity. And if the body hurts, don't go on. Stop.