Paintball Safest of All Extreme Sports: Play Safe, Play On!

HARTSDALE, N.Y.--There may have been 20.3 million sports mishaps in the U.S. in 2002, but most were very minor: ankle twists, scrapes, bruises and jammed fingers accounted for a majority of these momentary setbacks. 11.2 million injuries (53%) were self-treated (or untreated), while 6.1 million (30%) did not even hinder subsequent participation in the sport or activity; only 3.4 million sports injuries were serious enough to require Emergency Room treatment. These were among the preliminary findings of a Comprehensive Study of Sports Injuries in the U.S., conducted by American Sports Data, Inc. (ASD) a Hartsdale, N.Y.-based firm specializing in sports and fitness research.

Because of their larger populations, Basketball, Running and Soccer yielded the highest number of injuries--2.8 million, 1.7 million and 1.6 million respectively. Not unexpectedly, Tackle Football had the highest injury rate in 2002--18.8 per 100 players. "But on average, this means one injury every 5 player/years, and not necessarily a serious one at that," says ASD president Harvey Lauer. Ice Hockey, Boxing and Martial Arts have injury rates of 15.9%, 12.7% and 10.2%--translating to just one injury every 6, 8 and 10 years, respectively. The rates of injury requiring ER treatment are much lower: Football (6.1%); Hockey (6.6%); Boxing (11.5%); and Martial Arts (0.4%).

The most practical method of assessing risk potential in a sport is to measure the number of injuries per 1,000 athlete exposures--i.e. the number of times a participant engages in the activity over the course of a year. Using this method, Boxing ranks first with 5.2 injuries per 1,000 exposures, followed by Tackle Football (3.8), Snowboarding (3.8), Ice Hockey (3.7), Alpine Skiing (3.0), Soccer (2.4), Softball (2.2) and Basketball (1.9).

With the exception of Snowboarding (which ranks third), none of the other so-called "Extreme" sports carries a particularly high risk of injury. Surfing is 10th in risk potential (1.8 injuries per 1,000 exposures); Mountain Biking 18th (1.2 per thousand); Skateboarding 22nd (0.8 per thousand); and BMX 24th, also with 0.8. In-Line Roller-Skating places 27th with only 0.4 injuries per 1,000 athlete exposures.

While membership in the "Extreme Sports" category implies a whiff of danger, only Paintball is handicapped by a huge injury taboo--one that exists in the public mind, but not in the statistics. The industry has long maintained that the rare (but highly publicized) eye injury almost always occurs in an unsupervised, unprotected, often illegal setting; and that Paintball is a very safe activity--a claim substantiated by the current research, as the sport reflected only 0.2 injuries per 1,000 exposures, the lowest injury rate of any Extreme Sport. Put another way, the average player will suffer a Paintball injury about once every 500 years.

40% of all sports injuries were incurred by women--an oblique and perhaps unwelcome confirmation of their near-parity with men in U.S. sports participation. And lest we presume that female injuries are somehow more benign, women also account for 37% of all ER sports injuries. In view of the strong female presence in Soccer, Volleyball and Cheerleading (all higher-risk activities) these findings are not surprising.

Children aged 6-17 represent only 19% of the 6+ population, but 38% of all sports injuries, and 46% of ER admissions. Boys in the 12-17 age group are the highest at-risk segment; with barely 5% of the population, they account for 17% of all sports injuries, and 23% of those requiring ER treatment.

The rate of injury for individual exercise activities appears extremely low. While Runners/Joggers racked up 1.7 million injuries in 2002, (a number surpassed only by Basketball), the incidence of Running injuries was relatively subdued--only 0.6 per 1,000 exposures, compared with 1.9 for Basketball and 3.8 for Snowboarding. Half of all running injuries (52%) were of the gradual/overuse variety--not sudden/traumatic incidents.

Injuries resulting from equipment exercise were rare. Among those who trained with free weights or weight machines, 1.1 million were injured in 2002--an incidence of only 0.1 per 1,000 exposures. For Treadmill usage, the most popular form of cardio equipment exercise, the injury rate was also a microscopic 0.1 per 1,000 exposures. Even lower rates were found for Stationary Cycling and Stair-Climbing Machines.

A lower-than-expected injury rate appeared for Wrestling. With only 1.4 injuries per 1,000 athlete exposures, the sport placed 15th in the standings. Hunting registered only 0.8 per 1,000, for a ranking of 23rd. And in a not-too-surprising measurement, Softball was found to have a higher injury potential than Baseball--2.2 per 1,000 exposures versus 1.4 for Baseball. In Baseball, 63% of all injuries occurred in either the elbow (18%), shoulder (18%), knee (15%), or ankle (12%). For Softball, shoulder (17%), ankle (15%), knee (11%) and finger injuries (10%) accounted for 53% of the total. These data--along with the specific injury descriptions reported by Baseball and Softball players--strongly suggest that only a small percentage of all Baseball/Softball injuries are the result of a thrown or batted ball.

It has been widely assumed that for a variety of reasons, sports injury rates are skyrocketing; but overall trends in sports injuries are, according to Lauer, unknown. "For one thing, there hasn’t been a dedicated national consumer survey done in nearly 30 years--certainly not a ‘numerator/denominator’ study that addressed both injuries and sports participation in the same questionnaire," he said. By definition, the well-known emergency room study conducted by the Consumer Products Safety Commission documents only more serious sports injuries.

A Comprehensive Study of Sports Injuries in the U.S. is derived from the Superstudy® of Sports Participation, conducted in January 2003 and based on a nationally representative sample of 15,063 people over the age of 6 who were among 25,000 respondents targeted in a sample drawn from the consumer mail panel of NFO Research, Inc. 103 sports and activities were measured along over 20 demographic, attitudinal and behavioral dimensions. This annual tracking study has been conducted by ASD every year since 1987. For more information, call (914) 328-8877, or log onto www.americansportsdata.com/sports-injury1.asp. The price of the report is $595.

U.S. SPORTS INJURIES -- 2002
(TOP 25)
	Total		E.R. INJURIES
	(000)	(%)	(000)
TOTAL	20,145	100.0	3,358
Basketball	2,783	13.8	521
Running/Jogging	1,654	8.2	*
Soccer	1,634	8.1	259
Football (Tackle)	1,084	5.4	351
Softball	1,063	5.3	122
Strength Training	1,062	5.3	*
Volleyball	667	3.3	128
Football (Touch)	661	3.3	*
Martial Arts	610	3.0	*
Baseball	602	3.0	*
Fitness Walking	529	2.6	*
Bicycling (Recreational)	445	2.2	109
Tennis	415	2.1	*
Ice Hockey	415	2.1	171
Skateboarding	399	2.0	103
Walking (Recreational)	384	1.9	*
Cheerleading	323	1.6	*
Golf	291	1.4	*
Skiing (Downhill)	289	1.4	*
Aerobics (Net)	279	1.4	*
Horseback Riding	265	1.3	*
Roller Skating (In-Line)	252	1.3	105
Snowboarding	218	1.1	*
Hunting	207	1.0	103
Mountain Biking	201	1.0	*
* Less than 100,000
SOURCE: AMERICAN SPORTS DATA, INC.

U.S. SPORTS INJURIES -- 2002 RANKED BY PARTICIPANT INCIDENCE
(TOP 25)
INJURIES PER 100
	PARTICIPANTS	INJURIES	PARTICIPANTS
	(000)		(000)
Football(Tackle)	5,783	1,084	18.8
IceHockey	2,612	415	15.9
Boxing	908	116	12.7
MartialArts	5,996	610	10.2
Soccer	17,641	1,634	9.3
Cheerleading	3,596	323	9.0
Basketball	36,584	2,783	7.6
Wrestling	2,026	133	6.5
Softball	16,587	1,063	6.4
Baseball	10,402	602	5.8
Surfing	1,879	99	5.3
Bicycling(BMX)	3,885	188	4.8
Running/Jogging	35,866	1,654	4.6
Football(Touch)	14,903	661	4.4
Racquetball	4,840	154	3.2
Volleyball	21,488	667	3.1
Skateboarding	12,997	399	3.1
MountainBiking	6,719	201	3.0
Gymnastics	5,149	149	2.9
Snowboarding	7,691	218	2.8
Tennis	16,353	415	2.5
Skiing(Downhill)	14,249	289	2.0
StrengthTraining (Net)	58,434	1,062	1.8
HorsebackRiding	14,641	265	1.8
Aerobics(Net)	16,046	279	1.7
SOURCE: AMERICAN SPORTS DATA, INC.

U.S. SPORTS INJURIES -- 2002 RANKED BY EXPOSURE INCIDENCE
(TOP 25)
INJURIES PER 1000
	ATHLETE EXPOSURES	INJURIES	EXPOSURES
	(000)		(000)
Boxing	22,164	116	5.2
Football (Tackle)	285,764	1,084	3.8
Snowboarding	57,697	218	3.8
Ice Hockey	112,802	415	3.7
Skiing (Downhill)	95,849	289	3.0
Soccer	682,649	1,634	2.4
Softball	472,936	1,063	2.2
Basketball	1,460,319	2,783	1.9
Football (Touch)	349,210	661	1.9
Surfing	56,432	99	1.8
Cheerleading	193,206	323	1.7
Water Skiing	61,715	100	1.6
Racquetball	102,266	154	1.5
Martial Arts	409,259	610	1.5
Wrestling	92,747	133	1.4
Baseball	443,297	602	1.4
Volleyball	504,022	667	1.3
Mountain Biking	169,734	201	1.2
Tennis	368,663	415	1.1
Ice Skating	96,694	105	1.1
Horseback Riding	279,091	265	1.0
Skateboarding	471,739	399	0.8
Hunting	252,032	207	0.8
Bicycling (BMX)	236,931	188	0.8
Running/Jogging	2,629,692	1,654	0.6
SOURCE: AMERICAN SPORTS DATA, INC.

SELECTED EXERCISE INJURIES -- 2002 RANKED BY EXPOSURE INCIDENCE
INJURIES PER 1000
	ATHLETE EXPOSURES	INJURIES	EXPOSURES
	(000)		(000)
Racquetball	102,266	154	1.5
Tennis	368,663	415	1.1
Running/Jogging	2,629,692	1,654	0.6
Fitness Bicycling	602,666	151	0.3
Aerobics (Net)	1,238,763	279	0.2
Cardio Kickboxing	261,251	58	0.2
Yoga/Tai Chi	450,834	85	0.2
Fitness Walking	4,135,780	529	0.1
Fitness Swimming	734,019	91	0.1
Pilates Training	193,988	18	0.1
Treadmill Exercise	2,771,942	187	0.1
Home Gym Exercise	665,185	40	0.1
Strength Training (Net)	8,964,297	1,062	0.1
Stationary Cycling (Net)	1,960,316	54	*
Stair-Climbing Machine	751,295	18	*
Stretching	4,131,239	53	*
* Less than 0.1
SOURCE: AMERICAN SPORTS DATA, INC.