As my school volleyball season wraps up, and my club volleyball tryouts are coming up in two days. I’d like take a chance to summarise the types of injuries a volleyball athlete may endure.

At a glance, volleyball to an average person at my school would be the least exciting sport to play. Most people think volleyball is just a group of girls wearing spandex, and doing special handshakes. So pretty much no one believes that it would cause any kind of injury. However, through a recent survey that was done by Healthgrove.com, the top 20 sports that caused most injuries in a year. Surprising to many, Volleyball ranked a solid eighth place, in front of “high” risk sports like Ice Hockey and weightlifting. As a matter of fact, for every 1000 hours 2-4 injuries occur

Types of injuries that may occur

Being a sport that involves repeated overhead motions, volleyball players are prone to many shoulder injuries.  A common injury is the Rotator Cuff Tendinitis caused by the overuse of the rotator cuff when serving or spiking. Another common area for volleyball injury is the knee. A major one is the ACL tear as it takes the longest rehabilitation period, (six to nine months). Furthermore, for athletes to play again, the ACL tendon will need to be rebuilt.

Luckily, there are still many ways to prevent these injuries. The easiest thing you can do is to make sure you warm up before a game or practice and cool down after.