Overuse Elbow Injuries in Youth Gymnasts

Abstract

Background: Gymnastics is a unique sport that places significant loads across the growing elbow, resulting in unique overuse injuries, some of which are poorly described in the current literature.

Purpose: To provide a comprehensive review of the unique overuse elbow injuries seen in youth gymnasts and to provide an up-to-date synthesis of the available literature and clinical expertise guiding treatment decisions in this population.

Study design: Narrative review.

Methods: A review of the PubMed database was performed to include all studies describing elbow biomechanics during gymnastics, clinical entities of the elbow in gymnasts, and outcomes of operative and/or nonoperative treatment of elbow pathology in gymnasts.

Results: Participation in gymnastics among youth athletes is high, being the sixth most common sport in children. Early specialization is the norm in this sport, and gymnastics also has the highest number of participation hours of all youth sports. As a result, unique overuse elbow injuries are common, primarily on the lateral side of the elbow. Beyond common diagnoses of radiocapitellar plica and osteochondritis dissecans of the capitellum, we describe a pathology unique to gymnasts involving stress fracture of the radial head. Additionally, we synthesized our clinical experience and expertise in gymnastics to provide a sport-specific rehabilitation program that can be used by providers treating surgical and nonsurgical conditions of the elbow and wishing to provide detailed activity instructions to their athletes.

Conclusion: Overuse injuries of the elbow are common in gymnastics and include osteochondritis dissecans of the capitellum, radiocapitellar plica syndrome, and newly described radial head stress fractures. A thorough understanding of the psychological, cultural, and biomechanical aspects of gymnastics are necessary to care for these athletes.

Keywords: elbow; gymnast; overuse injuries.