Nutrition in Combat Sports

216 R.R. Wroble
allows holds only above the waist. Each style of wrestling requires similar training
methods, but match length differs by level and by style.
Wrestling is one of the most physically demanding sports and thus results in
some of the widest variety of injury types seen in any sports setting. Health care
providers must be ready to deal with injuries that are similar to other contact and
collision sports, but also with problems unique to wrestling, such as diet, weight
loss, nutrition issues, ear injuries, and skin infections.
Wrestling rules ban certain holds and moves that obviously exert potentially
injurious force to the extremities or spine (National Federation). A variety of holds
are banned: (a) twisting of the fingers, (b) any hold with intent to injure or cause
pain, (c) holds that may cause dislocation, (d) twisting of the neck or back, and (e)
headlocks without an arm included. Should these situations arise during a match,
any advantage gained is nullified in the scoring, and the referee takes one of the
following actions. The referee may (a) break the dangerous hold without stopping
the action; (b) stop the action, break the hold, and award penalties: the opponent of
the offending wrestler may be given one or two points, or the offender assigned a
caution; (c) if the wrestler is injured by the opponent’s illegal action and is ruled
medically unfit to continue, the wrestler at fault is disqualified or; (d) a wrestler can
be immediately disqualified for flagrant misconduct.
The rules also address other important areas of competition. Competition is conducted
by weight class, ensuring that athletes are size-matched. The rules also require
safety in positioning mats, scoreboards, and tables during a competition, as well
as mandating that medical personnel are present at all major competitive events.
If an injury occurs during the match and time is called, the referee instructs the
scorer to start an injury time clock. Once the clock starts, the wrestler has only a
minute and a half to resume wrestling or default the match. The time is cumulative
throughout the match. During that time, the health care professionals make a decision
regarding participation. If bleeding is present, a 5-min time limit applies.
13.2 Epidemiology
In virtually all reports examining injury rates in sports, the number of injuries in
wrestling is significantly high, often second only to American football (Requa and
Garrick 1981 ). In three large prospective studies, injury rates for high school wrestlers
ranged from 22.7 to 50 injuries per 100 wrestlers (Estwanik and Rovere 1983,
Garrick and Requa 1978 , National High School Injury Registry ). Pasque prospectively
examined injury patterns of high school athletes over the course of one season.
The overall injury rate was 6.0/1,000 athlete-exposures. This high injury rate occurs
for several reasons. First, wrestling is a contact sport and contact in wrestling occurs
virtually 100% of the time. Second, wrestling is also a collision sport. Collisions
occur when a wrestler “shoots” or attempts a takedown. Takedowns are the highest
risk situation in college wrestling (Wroble 1986 a and b). In three high school
studies, takedowns were associated with 42–50% of all injuries (Strauss and Lanese
1982 , Requa and Garrick 1981 , Estwanik 1983 ).