Injury epidemiology of youth cross-country mountain biking coaches: analysis of data from the National Interscholastic Cycling Association injury surveillance system.

Abstract

To date, no literature exists on mountain biking injuries in coaches. This study described cross-country mountain biking injuries among coaches in National Interscholastic Cycling Association (NICA) sanctioned leagues from 2018 to 2022. Data were collected using the NICA injury surveillance system (ISS), a web-based injury and exposure reporting system for youth mountain biking, and were analysed using descriptive and univariate inferential statistics. A total of 401 injury events, including 661 distinct time-loss injuries, were reported in 59,545 coach-years over five seasons, resulting in an injury event proportion of 0.67%. The median time-loss due to injury was about 31 days for all injured coaches. The most commonly injured body part was shoulder/clavicle (32.7% of all injury events), followed by head/concussion (18.0% of all injury events) and wrist/hand (17.7% of all injury events). Fracture was the most common diagnosis (27.1% of all non-head injuries). Male coaches sustained upper-limb injuries significantly more often than did female coaches (62.9% vs. 51.5%; p = 0.044), whereas the rate of lower-limb injuries was significantly higher among female coaches than male coaches (33.3% vs. 17.9%; p = 0.001). Fractures and concussions are the most common diagnoses. These findings could be used for designing future injury prevention programmes.