Protecting the younger spine during cricket season
With cricket season upon us soon, now is an excellent time to recap the current Australian bowling guidelines for young cricketers, and how best to prevent an injury we often see in the low back.
Pars interarticularis stress injuries are a common injury often seen in young cricketers, particularly bowlers. The reason we often see these low back injuries is due to the nature of fast pace bowling, involving fast and repetitive hyper-extension and rotation movements of the low back. As a result, there is increased stress placed on the pars interarticularis. Younger athletes are more susceptible to these injuries as the skeletal system is still developing and maturing, in other words the bones aren’t necessarily at their full strength yet.
What does a pars stress injury feel like?
Athletes can often describe symptoms as a dull but rather constant pain in the low back that doesn’t “warm up”, and is typically made worse after bowling. The athlete may find bowling slower (such as spin bowling) or at lower intensities doesn’t aggravate symptoms to the same extent that fast-pace bowling does. Symptoms can often continue through the night as well.
How to prevent or manage a pars stress injury?
As this type of injury is so common amongst young cricketers, Cricket Australia have developed some guidelines to help inform coaches and athletes. These guidelines include pre-season preparation, training session specifics, and match recommendations across different age groups to suit the various stages of bone growth and maturity. Guidelines also consider the level of play (community vs. higher level athletes).
Check out the Cricket Australia Junior Bowling guidelines
Cricket Australia encourages adequate rest and recovery days in-between bowling sessions, and limiting the number of balls thrown per session (factoring in intensity, frequency and duration of sessions). Current guidelines are to prevent the cause of pars stress injuries, however if an existing injury is already present then more specific modifications should be made.
Ongoing symptoms in the low back is a good indicator that current training volumes may be too much and/or recovery periods aren’t adequate, which can result in the worsening of the bone stress injury. Having a chat to your coach and making some small adjustments is a good first step towards giving your back time to settle down and strengthen up.
The good news is that there are plenty of other skills athletes can work on whilst the injury recovers, for example:
-
General cardio and strength training
-
Low intensity bowling or technique bowling
-
Fielding practice
-
Limiting higher intensity bowling or fast paced bowling – guided by symptoms
Appropriate management of a pars stress injury will allow for an optimal season ahead as well as prevention of more nasty low back injuries.
