Dilemma in the Treatment of Sports Injuries in Athletes: Tendon Overuse, Muscle Strain, and Tendon Rupture

Injuries to the musculoskeletal system are frequent in elite sports and they are detrimental to athletic performance. This can be due to, for example, (1) overuse disorders of tendon (tendinopathy) that not only lower the training efficiency but also, in many cases, are career-ending for the athlete due to pain; (2) acute muscle strain injury that both causes prolonged absence from competition and results in many re-injuries; or (3) tendon rupture that, apart from a very long rehabilitation period, will also result in many athletes never resuming their original high level of competitive sports. For all three injury examples, several evidence-based prevention programs and treatments are available, and yet the incidence of these injuries remains high and single treatments often provide only partial recovery. In this paper, we highlight the current treatments of these three conditions and focus on the unsolved dilemmas that exist in these sports injuries.