Can you suffer a sports injury at work?

On Behalf of | Dec 27, 2022 | Workplace Injuries

There are certain types of injuries that people often think of as sports-related injuries. For example, if you’re a fan of the NFL, you have probably seen a football player suffer a torn ACL. If you are a fan of tennis, you’ve probably heard of athletes having to miss time after getting treatment for tennis elbow.

One important thing to remember is that these injuries and ailments are not strictly related to sports. They could happen to anyone, and they could certainly happen to you on the job. This risk exists, even for those who do not play sports at all.

Repetitive motion injuries

For example, tennis elbow is only called tennis elbow because it happens to athletes who are injured through the repetitive motion of swinging the racket the same way thousands upon thousands of times. One swing isn’t going to have a negative impact on their body. But doing it repeatedly, without proper antagonistic exercise, can cause long-term problems.

The same thing could happen to a carpenter on the job when he has to swing a hammer thousands of times per day. It could also happen to someone who works on an assembly line, where they have to pick items up and put them together in exactly the same fashion repeatedly. This type of repetition almost never feels dangerous on its own, but it is the cumulative impact that really harms your body.

What are your options after an injury?

If you get injured on the job, whether it happens in a one-time event like a fall, or in a repetitive event like swinging a hammer, you need to make sure that you know about all of your options to seek workers’ comp. This can help cover medical bills, lost wages and more. Remember that this can be more complicated with a repetitive motion injury that happened over time, rather than a one-time accident that clearly happened at work. That’s why understanding what legal steps to take is so important.

 

 

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