Karate Injury Survey

[Dr. Alex Sternberg]

Dear Friends

I have been practicing shotokan Karate (JKA style) for over 50 years. During that time and especially during the past 20 years or so, I noticed that many of my friends and colleagues were being felled by injuries requiring surgery. With each passing year more people I knew had surgery.I began to wonder why this was so. After doing some preliminary research, it became apparent that the incidence of such injuries seemed to exceed that of the national norm. And, after I myself needed hip replacement,( after having had two knee surgeries) a friend of mine who was a pediatrician asked me "what will I do to prevent my son (who has been training for over 30 years) from also needing such surgical intervention"? I had no answer.

I decided to begin to research this area to see the relationship between long term training and orthopedic degeneration. Was training causing orthopedic problems?

The first step in this scientific inquiry is to see how many of us are having problems.

I developed this karate injury survey to answer that question. For the past two months, I have been asking karate people to answer my completely anonymous survey. Presently, I have over 880 respondents. Of these about 260 are shotokan and 280 are from a style labeled "other". Presently, I am looking for more folks from shitoryu, wado-ryu and goju-ryu to answer my survey.

This is the first time, in my knowledge, that any scientific survey has been undertaken to examine our training habits and our long term injuries.

I can not over emphasize the importance of this research. Are we doing any thing wrong in the way we train? By simply ignoring this issue, we are potentially hurting ourselves, our children and our students. We need to know if there is anything wrong with what we are doing. Then we can address the next issue: what can be done to correct it.

So, please take about ten minutes out of your busy lives and answer my survey. Your karate training future may depend on it!

The link is

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/KarateInjurySurvey

Thank you

Dr. Alex Sternberg DrPHc MPH,Sc.D, M.Sc.

Assoc.Prof: Division of Athletic Training, Health and Exercise Science -Long Island Univ.(adj.)

Director:Pediatric Pulmonary Function, and Exercise Testing Laboratory (ret.)

Clinical Instructor: Dep't Orthopedic Surgery and Rehabilitation Medicine

Downstate Medical Center

[Patrick]

Welcome to KF, Dr. Sternberg. Just to confirm for anyone reading this, I have OKed this and please feel free to participate in the survey at your discretion.

Thanks,

Patrick

[ShoriKid]

Survey completed. I'm not sure that my information and input will be over helpful, but it's yours to use. Best of luck in your research.

Do you have any theories concerning the nature or frequency of injury in the martial artists population that you care to share at this time? I have always attributed many of the injuries to the dynamic nature of martial arts, the continued training past the physical prime where most athletes would have retired and the fact that martial arts were derived from activities meant to cause harm to other humans (in general) as being large contributing factors. I have no proof or real research to back this up, just personal observation, which I realize is not data.

[Wastelander]

I have not been training long enough to participate in this survey (almost 8 years, currently), but I did pass it along to some people I know who do qualify. I hope the research goes well!

[sensei8]

Welcome to KF!!

Just finished said survey!! Interesting, to say the least!! Will you be letting us know your findings, whenever it's appropriate to do so.

Thank you!!

[cheesefrysamurai]

Dr Sternberg, did you have the school on Austin street in forest hills queens?

[Ti]

Since my early kyu days, I've noticed the correlation between training and the toll it takes on the human body. In some of the dojos I've been to there is the usual running gag about how an old karate sensei can barely walk, yet can do an amazing reverse punch at the drop of a dime. As practitioners of the art, we usually laugh at this and focus on the reverse punch, but take lightly that the person can barely move themselves the rest of the time. Training is hard on the body and the admirable mentality is to continue to push to new limits. Of course in challenging ourselves we reach new heights as we overcome things.

I think there is importance to look into this and see what can be uncovered and I will most certainly participate in the survey.

[Dr. Alex Sternberg]

Yes, I will share the results of this survey. I expect to publish in medical journals as well as trade karete publications. I will begin to analyze in January