The characteristics regarding history of sports activity, sports related injury and illness, lifestyle, and interdisciplinary support in junior athletes

Abstract

This study examined the experiences in sports, lifestyle, previous and present history of injury and illness, physical and mental burden during sports activities, general health concerns, and request of professional support in 141 junior high school students who belonging extracurricular sports club in public junior high school using paper pencil questionnaire. As the result, high severe past injury proportion was observed in students who experienced zero, three or four kinds of sports event in their childhood. A short sleep duration was observed in test period, and this trend was remarkable in girl. A skipped breakfast was observed in 3.8% of boy and 7.4% of girl, and their sleep duration tended to be shorter than the average value of all participants. The awareness in sleep of both gender, and that in physical condition of girl were higher than that in nutrition. In addition, a lot of participants seek for the professional support of training in muscular strength, sports specific technique, and physical fitness. These results suggested that understanding individual history of past sports experiences, life style such as sleep duration and skipped breakfast, and awareness in general health is crucial for managing safety and health management in junior athletes.