Why, when I was a kid, major leaguers didn’t take off from the season for a “strained oblique.” Hell, we didn’t even know what an oblique was. Nor did they take off for “sore calf,” or any of a myriad of little maladies. And pitchers threw a ton of innings whereas now, there’s a pitch limit, and innings limit, and who knows what else.
Were athletes tougher then? I understand the teams need to “protect their investments,” and way more money is tied up in these guys, maybe leading some teams to sit their players if there’s any chance of injury. But maybe back in the day, a player wouldn’t want to be taken out so he would play with a minor or nagging injury. Maybe they were tougher.
So my questions are these: Are athletes more prone to injuries now? If so, are training methods that produce stronger, better conditioned athletes implicated? What else could it be?
One theory is that while improved training results in bigger and stronger muscles it doesn’t result in stronger tendons, ligaments and bones, which now can’t cope with the increased forces.
In relation to baseball pitchers in particular, I’ve seen people say that back in the old days there were a lot of poor batters, so the pitcher could take it easy more often, and only throw at 75-80% intensity. So pitchers could pace themselves over the full 9 innings. Whereas now it’s pretty much all-out all the time.
Not that the OP was started in a forum improper, but I"m moving from General QUestions to The GAMe Room. Might be better answered in the GAme Room.
samclem, Moderator
More money tied up in players makes teams more cautious about pressuring them to play through injury.
Players who have a union or otherwise don’t experience a vast disparity in power between employer/employee are less likely to accept being pressured to play through injury.
We also didn’t know about injuries then, so who knows why some older-era players suddenly stopped playing?
Biggest culprit is earlier specific training, leading to vastly longer time doing a particular movement pattern, which results in more overuse injuries. General fitness is generally poor due to the tight focus on sports-specific training, which also results in higher injury rates. If you have strength imbalances, you have an area of relative weakness that can result in an injury even if you’re avoiding repetitive stress injuries.
Kids are focusing on one sport from grade school now. The result is that the overall skill level has gone up, but the injury rate is higher and more athletes burn out before they even get out of school.
Concussions are a bit culprit for injury time in the NHL and NFL these days. A few commentators I’ve heard have made the observation that, a few decades ago, you would have just been told by the coach you had your “bell rung,” given some smelling salts, and then thrown back out on the field. A lot of these athletes were treated more like equipment than people.