Stretching, strengthening, and shoes: Orthopaedic surgeon explains why athletes pick up leg injuries and how to avoid them

India all-rounder Nitish Reddy recently withdrew form the UK white-ball tour because of a quadriceps injury. Pacer Harshit Rana has just made a comeback from knee injury. Olympian steeplechase racer Avinash Sable underwent a knee surgery last year. There are many more athletes across sports who suffer such leg injuries. Some are able to come back but many see their performance going down or in worst case, career getting over. These injuries happen despite the athletes taking good care of their body, having a custom-made training regimen and everything else possible to maximise the potential. But the question is why theses leg injuries happen?

WION spoke to Dr. Tushar Mehta, Orthopaedic surgeon and sports injury expert, who is based of Gurgaon in India's National Capital Area (NCR) near New Delhi, to try and understand about the reasons and anatomy behind such occurrences.

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"The entire challenge it about eccentric loading. The anatomy of a leg is divided into three parts: A joint which is knee, femur and tibia bones (thigh and shin, respectively), and third is a set of muscles - quadriceps and hamstrings at front and back of a thigh. Now, athletes tend to focus more on muscle but what they forget to realise is that there are two S for muscles - Stretching and Strengthening," said Dr. Mehta.

"The warm-up before playing any sport covers stretching but strength is required as well. The physios and coaches put more focus on stretching and not as much on strengthening. And, even if they are focusing on strengthening, it is often not in proportion to the anatomy of the athlete.

"For example, a wide pelvis of an athlete puts weight on knee at a different angle than an athlete with narrow pelvis. So, the first thing is to get the whole lower limb x-ray done and see where the weight bearing axis is and then plan the muscle stretching and strengthening program for that athlete which is different for each individual.

"For quads and hams, athlete focus on the muscle more and tend to neglect bone and the joint and the training session plan has to be made keeping all those things in mind. Even a slight negligence can cause an injury," he added.

Dr. Mehta also highlighted the importance of a good shoe for athletes and how it impacts as well as can prevent a potential injury and emphasised 'one size does not fit all.'

"A shoe is one of the most important thing to prevent a leg injury," he said. "One type of shoe doesn't fit all and most athletes don't understand that. Every individual has a different impression of foot arches. It is imperative to get a customised sole for the shoe or at least buy as per the foot arch impression. Till the time, shoe sole and arches are not in sync, knee will get affected during the run-up.

"The irony of the foot is that the problem of the foot gets transmitted to the knee," he added, highlighting the complex nature of human body and how a slight negligence can take a toll on athletes.