The Importance of Recovery to Prevent Injuries in Track and Field - A Quantitative Study on Swedish Elite Track and Field athletes’ recovery

Abstract

The balance between training and recovery is crucial for elite athletes to prevent injuries. Track and field is a sport that is practiced worldwide on all levels and the practice is associated with a risk of suffering an injury. The purpose with this study is to investigate how recovery factors in elite track and field athletes’ recovery is associated with the development of injuries and if training when you’re fatigued increases the risk of getting an injury. This is to get a better understanding of the importance of the recovery. The study has a quantitative approach were the data has been collected through an application on smartphones with questions to measure the athletes’ recovery every day from September 2016 to April 2017. The answers have been analyzed as a part of a longitudinal study (2016-2020). The athletes who participated (n=36) are either top three juniors (18-22 years) or top six seniors (>22 years) in Sweden in their discipline representing sprint, jump, middle/long distance running or throwing. The results show that you cannot see which factor(s) that affect the development of injuries (p>0.05). There is also no significant difference (p>0.05) between the non-injured- and the injured athletes in terms of fatigue to prevent an injury. More research needs to be done in track and field to investigate how the recovery process contributes to the development of injuries.