Preventive Methods for Karate Injuries- A Review

Abstract

Sports injury is a major concern for athletes. Karate is a form of martial art that is practiced widely across the world. Injuries are inherent in karate as it is a combative sport. Therefore, there is a need of implementation of preventive strategies which play a great role in reducing the injuries. This review aimed to identify common injuries and preventive strategies for injury prevention in karate athletes. An electronic search in Google Scholar, MEDLINE, PubMed, Web of Science and Scopus was conducted by using following keywords: karate athletes, common injuries, prevention and protective equipment. Studies on injury prevention in karate athletes and studies published in English language were included in this review. Reviews and studies with free access to only abstract have been excluded. Protective equipment like mouthguards, groin guards, knuckle protection, gloves and proper padding help in prevention of injury. Strict implementation of rules and specific conditioning programs were found to be effective in injury prevention and should be encouraged for injury prevention in karate athletes. Athletes, parents and coaches should be educated regarding evolving injury prevention methods. Also, it was found that there were very few number of RCTs done in regards to preventive training programs in martial arts and karate.