Musculoskeletal system injuries of Turkish table tennis athletes

Objective: The aim of the study was to investigate the type of injuries and the distribution of the injury regions of athletes in some Turkish universities' table tennis teams during training and competitions in a year. Material and Methods: A total of 117 volunteer athletes (51 males and 66 females) participated in the study. A personal information form and the Nordic Musculoskeletal System Questionnaire were used to evaluate the injuries. The questionnaire was created on Google Form and filled in by voluntary participants. SPSS 23.0 statistical package program was used to evaluate the data. Percentage and frequency distributions of the data and chi-square test analysis results are presented in tables. The significance level was considered as p<0.05. Results: It is seen that table tennis athletes usually experience injuries in the upper extremities during training. It was determined that these injuries did not reveal a difference according gender, but warm-up exercises performed before training and competitions, and cooling-down exercises performed afterwards had positive effects on injury prevention. Conclusion: Upper extremity injuries in table tennis athletes can be reduced by correct warm-up and cool-down exercises.