GRIFFIN DOMBROSKE
Special to The Leader
Ever since the NFL started back up in September, one of the leading questions brought up has been why it seems like every team is having a higher concentration of injuries than ever before.
In the first week of games, a startling amount of big name players were injured, including Christian McCaffrey, Jimmy Garoppolo and Saquon Barkley.
This spike in injuries has everyone pointing all of their injured appendages at either one of two culprits.
The sudden increase could be a direct result of either a lack of high-intensity practice or an excess of high-intensity practice.
The former would make sense because if a player or team has too many easy practices, then they can become used to a lax playstyle — meaning when they step onto the field, their bodies would not be ready to perform the way they need to.
The other possible candidate for these injuries is too many high-intensity practices.
If a team works too hard for every practice, it can break down the body much faster, which is generally fine, but if no rest or easy days are taken, then the body has no chance to recover and rebuild what was lost during the practices.
Both of these reasons are probable, but the cause of the injuries is likely from a third reason: the COVID-19 restrictions and policies.
Here at SUNY Fredonia, we have policy and restriction changes every week or two, so it can be assumed that it is much more frequent at the national level.
With all of these sudden changes, players are forced to adapt to a different practice schedule every week.
This means that not only are the players probably highly stressed, but their schedules are probably not lining up like they normally do.
This causes more stress for the players and the coaches.
The people at the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine have done many studies related to the effects of stress on an athlete’s body, and they are fairly conclusive.
The more stressed an athlete is, the higher the chance of injury.
So the top athletes in the NFL — who already have the stress of needing to go out every week and perform — have the additional stress of not knowing what will come as of next week.
With all of this in mind, it’s honestly surprising that there haven’t been even more injuries than we’ve seen in these first five weeks.
If you’re a student-athlete here at Fredonia, keep all of this information in the back of your mind.
Just because you’re not a national athlete doesn’t mean that stress does not have a negative affect on your body.
Make sure you keep your work, social and athletic lives balanced in order to optimize your college experience.