Epidemiological analysis of painful musculoskeletal symptoms among Greek competitive road cyclists of different age categories.

Panagiotis Gkrilias; Athanasios Zavvos; Anastasios Koumpetsos; Charalampos Matzaroglou; Konstantinos Fousekis; Evdokia Billis; Elias Tsepis

Volume : VIII, Issue : VII, July - 2018

Epidemiological analysis of painful musculoskeletal symptoms among Greek competitive road cyclists of different age categories.

Panagiotis Gkrilias, Athanasios Zavvos, Anastasios Koumpetsos, Charalampos Matzaroglou, Konstantinos Fousekis, Evdokia Billis, Elias Tsepis

Abstract :

This study aimed to determine the incidence rate of painful musculoskeletal symptoms in competitive road cycling athletes of different age categories.

The Greek version of the Standardized Nordic Questionnaire (SNQ) was completed by 74 Male cycling athletes,who competed in 3 different age categories (Under–23, Men, Master).Participantsin SNQ were asked whether they had pain/discomfort in 9 different anatomical regions during the preceding 12 months and if those symptoms impeded their normal activity during the last year andthe 7 previous days.

The higher incidence of pain/discomfort (12–month report) was reported for the neck region (44.6%) followed by the lower back (39.2%) and shoulders (33.8%), independently of age category. There were no statistically significant differences among three ages sub–groups for all SNQ parameters.

Present study highlights the need for specific injury prevention and rehabilitation programsin competitive road cycling athletes.