Sports surgeon: Pickleball and hyrox injuries on the rise

Sports Surgeon: Pickleball and Hyrox Injuries On The Rise

KUALA LUMPUR: As more and more Malaysians play recreational sports, what are the most common injuries that they are likely to sustain?

Timesport interviewed renowned consultant orthopaedic and sports medicine surgeon Dr Gan Eng Cheng on the matter.

According to Dr Gan, knee issues from playing football and futsal remain the most common sports injury among Malaysians though pickleball and hyrox are climbing fast up the list.

Dr Gan said for right-handed athletes, it is often the left knee, which acts as a pivot point when kicking or hitting a ball, that is affected.

"The most common injury is the knee. The knee accounts for almost 60 per cent of my work."

"The biggest contributor to knee injuries are football and futsal.

"But it also occurs in sports such as badminton, basketball, volleyball, golf, tennis and more recently, pickleball and hyrox, rock climbing and padel.

"As most of us are right handed, most of the injuries occur to the left knee because in most sports you will be pivoting or twisting on your left knee, so you have to be cautious of this."

Dr Gan said knee injuries are less common in sports that do not involve rapid direction changes such as cycling and running, though the latter can cause issues with arthritis in older athletes.

The 62-year-old, who runs the Dr Gan Specialist Clinic in TTDI, said he has observed a marked increase in injuries from pickleball players and hyrox athletes across varying ages recently.

"For pickleball, I see injuries in people as young as 12 to those who are over 70," he said.

"In the older players, above 70, their coordination is often poor so they can suffer falls which cause injury to their spine. I have one patient who fell backwards and fractured the lumbar spine.

"A lot of the older ones in the 60 to 70-year range are still playing very competitively, doing overhead smashes and so on. This can cause shoulder issues such as rotator cuff tears.

"It (rigorous play) can also cause anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) tears, meniscus tears and cartilage injury.

"In the younger players who are highly competitive, I have seen shoulder issues, ankle sprains, knee injuries and even ankle fractures as well as slipped discs from twisting too fast without adequate warm-up.

"I have noticed the injuries (for pickleball) are varied and they are also cyclical. When it (pickleball craze) started the number of patients was high but then there was a drop.

"But last week itself, I saw five or six of them. Two of them needed surgery for shoulder and knee injuries."

Dr Gan said that for hyrox, athletes often suffer from overuse injuries due to a lack of conditioning but in general do not require surgery.

"It is quite normal to see hyrox athletes have delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS) or general muscle pain, but there are also those who injure their ligaments.

"In hyrox you are pushing your body to a certain extent, so you have a lot of issues with tendonitis over the body, including the knee.

"But in general, their injuries (in hyrox) are not so severe."

Dr Gan stressed the importance of conditioning the body to play sports, emphasising on core strength.

He also highlighted the importance of getting enough sleep.

"For your muscles to be in optimum condition you need to have enough sleep, it does not matter what sport you play," he said.

"If you do not get enough sleep, your muscles will not have enough time to recover.

"Then your muscles will not be resilient and you will get injured more easily. It will become a chronic issue."

Dr Gan said advancements in sports medicine and rehabilitation processes allow athletes to achieve a full recovery much faster than in the past.

"Right now the most hot (advancement) are things like artificial ligament and cartilage substitutes as well as using biological treatments such as stem cell (therapy).

"For surgeries, the focus now is on minimally invasive surgeries which can allow the athletes to resume competing or for (non-athletic) patients to return to normal activities as soon as possible.

"Gone are the days when we put them in casts. Now we mobilise them with functional braces. We don't want (muscle) atrophy, because atrophy means they will require months and months of recovery."

He said stem cell therapy has become more affordable over the years.

"It (price) depends on what (injury) you are looking at.

"For the knee, I would normally tell the patient you need at least three (stem cell) injections.

"One injection used to cost about RM30,000 but now with all the competition (from providers), it has gone down to almost RM5,000 which is more affordable for patients."

Dr Gan added that stem cell therapy is especially effective for treating muscle tears and subsequently preventing muscle imbalance in athletes.