Understanding Common Boxing Injuries

If you know anything about the sport of boxing, then it will come as no surprise that there are many injuries boxers can suffer.

While some of these injuries are minor and mostly require time or minor first aid to recover from, others are more serious and could even require a trip to the hospital.

While there are plenty of rules and regulations that professional boxers and event organizers follow to try and prevent injury as much as possible, it’s possible for something to go wrong and for someone to get seriously hurt. This is true in all areas of our lives, from driving a car on the highway to walking your dog.

If you’ve been injured and are seeking compensation for a Las Vegas personal injury claim, contact us and we’ll help you however we can.

The Different Types of Boxing Injuries

Let’s take a look at some of the most common boxing injuries. We’ll cover a few of these common injuries below to help you understand the risks your favorite boxers take on.

Bruises, Cuts, and Strains

We’ve all had bruises and cuts before, and these can be some of the most minor injuries a boxer can sustain. They are also the most obvious, as a hard hit may cause a bruise to form and a cut may trickle blood as the match continues.

Of course, both have different levels of severity. While unlikely in a boxing match, a bruise can go as deep as the bone and be incredibly dark and tender as a result and cuts can become so extreme or disorienting that they cut the match short.

Stains or pulled muscles, however, are a bit more serious. A muscle strain is an injury to a muscle or tendon caused by overstretching. Strains can be prevented with flexibility training, a balanced diet, and proper boxing training, but even these precautions aren’t always enough.

Strains can cause incredible pain, especially if severe, and can result in a match being called early. This is also to prevent a strain from becoming worse. Minor strains can be treated with simple first aid such as rest and an ice pack, but more serious strains result in tears in the muscle or tendon and may require more serious treatment.

Before we move on to cover the next injury, we’ll make one clear distinction: we are discussing strains here, which refer to injuries of muscles or tendons that connect muscles to bones and not sprains, which refer to injuries to the tissue that connects bones to other bones. Either injury would require a boxer to stop fighting, however.

Concussions

Concussions are common in many different sports, and it’s easy to see why they’re common in boxing. Getting repeatedly punched in the face will have its consequences, and sometimes that consequence is a concussion.

A concussion is when a blow or jolt causes the head and brain to rapidly move back and forth, and causes the brain tissue to change shape. This damages brain cells in a number of ways. Needless to say, a concussion is an important injury to take seriously. However, they can’t be scanned for the way other brain injuries can be. There are tests to discover if you have a concussion, though.

Asking a variety of questions will allow you to measure response time and see what information the injured person does and doesn’t remember. If the response time is slow or the person can’t remember simple information such as who their opponent is, or they are confused, they likely have a concussion. Other concussion symptoms include loss of consciousness, a glazed look in the eyes, and loss of balance.

Concussions can have impacts for the rest of the injured person’s life, so it’s important to diagnose and treat the injury as soon as possible to mitigate damage. While this is true of all concussions, it is especially true for more severe cases. Concussions are common in boxing, but they can also happen in other sports or if someone hits their head particularly hard on something.

If you feel you or someone around you has a concussion, get them to a medical professional as soon as possible.

Boxer’s Knuckle

Boxers wear gloves for a few reasons, such as to protect their opponents bodies as well as their own hands. They also train with a professional trainer for many hours a week to build their bodies strength, flexibility, and endurance.

Despite this, there are two injuries that are so common among boxers that they are named after the profession. These are the boxer’s knuckle and the boxer’s fracture. We’ll cover the fracture in the next section so we can focus on the knuckle here.

Boxer’s knuckle is when the knuckle sustains repeated blunt force trauma that damages the skin, muscle, cartilage, and other structures surrounding the knuckle. This injury is incredibly painful, of course but also can be career ending if left untreated.

On top of pain and swelling, it is possible for the afflicted to have difficulty in straightening the affected finger. It may also be possible to hear the injury occur if the extensor tendon snaps.

This injury will not heal correctly if left untreated and can completely end a boxer’s career as a result, as the knuckle may not work properly and be more vulnerable to further injury. However, full recovery is possible.

While all knuckles are susceptible to this injury, the middle knuckle is the most likely candidate due to how your knuckles clench, its middle position, and the fact that it tends to extend a bit further off of the fist than the other knuckles.

Boxer’s Fracture

The final common boxer injury we’ll cover here is the boxer’s fracture. This is when the bone that connects your wrist to your pinky finger is fractured. More specifically, when the neck of the bone or the part closest to your finger breaks, you experience this injury. It is far from pleasant and will require the boxer to rest for a while with a splint on their hand.

Should the injury be too severe, they may even require surgery. All of the injuries discussed above will prevent the injured boxer from fighting or even training for a while and this is no exception. If your favorite boxer encounters this injury, expect them to be out of commission for a good while.

As mentioned, all of these injuries are common in boxing, but they do all have treatments., The most important thing to remember about injuries is to take them seriously and get them checked out by a medical professional as soon as possible if they are severe or a concussion.

Doing so will limit pain, increase recovery time, and may even give you some more evidence for your court case if you need to file a personal injury case.