Alparslan Ünveren
The research aims to contribute to preventing of injuries and protection of athlete health by determining the Turkish National Taekwondo Athletes' injury states and their reasons. 39 National Athletes (14 males and 25 females) who participated in the National Team camp (2011) attended the research. Demographic information, information about injuries that occur in trainings and games, types of injury, injury areas and the reasons of injury were recorded by asking questions to the athletes. The frequency percentage (%) and average distributions of the data obtained thanks to the athletes' answers were calculated in SPSS 16.0 program by using descriptive statistics method. 94,87% of the athletes stated that they were injured whereas 5,13% of them stated the opposite. Most of the injuries consisted of "Strain" by 37,85%, "Crush" by 27,00% and "Sprain" by 24,35%. The injuries in games mostly consisted of "Crush" by 29,73%, "Sprain" by 24,33% and, "Rupture" and other various types by 13,51%. It was seen in the study that the most frequently injured areas of the national team athletes in trainings were Foot-Ankle by 51,4%, Calf-Femur by 32,4, Hand-Wrist, Knee and Calf-Femur by 5,4%. The most frequently injured areas in games were Foot-Ankle by 59,45%, Knee by 13,51%, Hand-Wrist and Calf-Femur by 10,82% and Waist-Hip by 5,40% (Table 4). The reasons for injuries in trainings according to the athletes' answers were insufficient warm-up by 51,28%, over loading by 17,95%, unconscious action by 10,26%, not using protective material by 15,38%. The reasons for injuries in games according to the athletes' answers were illegal action of the opponent by 33,33%, insufficient warm-up by 15,38%, insufficient training in the preparation period by 12,82%, over loading in the preparation period by 5,13% (Table 5). Consequently, the injuries of the Turkish National Taekwondo Team athletes mostly consisted of crush, strain and sprain. These injuries usually occured on the hand, foot, wrists and legs. The reasons were generally insufficient warm-up, unconscious training and illegal actions. Finally, it was observed that most of the injuries were treated in less than one month.
