A sport injury can be defined, tongue in cheek, as a «a matter of little consequence in comparison with sports». The legal definition is quite different: «If an accident occurs during athletic activity, the sequelae are referred to as a sport injury».

From the perspective of a specialist in sports medicine, a sport injury is an injury which takes place during sports or on the sport grounds and usually heals completely. It represents a single, sudden and unexpected exposure to external force which is directly related to the athletic activity and leads to the abrupt interruption of a dynamic movement sequence.

The different types of sport injuries are classified as sport-specific or typical sport injuries which occur repeatedly over the medium term in individuals participating in certain sports and which frequently display a characteristic injury pattern:

• head injuries incurred during tobogganing, swimming and judo
• shoulder injuries incurred during riding, rugby, ice hockey and handball
• wrist injuries incurred during cycling, roller skating or rollerblading, skateboarding and riding

From an insurance perspective, a sport injury can be classified as a vocational accident if the athletic activity took place within the framework of a company-related organization and was engaged in for the purpose of counteracting the physical, intellectual and emotional stress caused by the individual's work (company sport event).

The statutory accident insurance schemes cover accidents occurring during both school sports and professional sports.

Athletes are not all that afraid of an acute sport injury with a dramatic onset; they know that the primary damage caused by a sports accident generally heals completely as a result of the treatment afforded by modern tramatology. What athletes are far more afraid of is the chronic sport damage due to wear and tear on tissue and joints. This kind of damage is caused by recurrent microlesions in bones or soft tissue due to continuous false loading or overloading; complete recovery is achieved here in only a few cases.

The chronic damage associated with the individual sports, caused in each case by a specific overloading or false loading syndrome, has been given special names by specialists in sports medicine. Several typical examples are listed bel

• jumper's knee
• boxer's cauliflower ears
• surfer's ear
• discus thrower's elbow
• tennis elbow
• golfer's elbow
• skier's thumb
• runner's knee etc.

There is thus a close relationship between stress resistance and stress. A discrepancy between the two manifests itself as sport damage with reversible or irreversible injury to the musculoskeletal apparatus. In this context stress resistance depends on the qualitative and quantitative stress intensity as well as on the possibilities for adapting to the stress; the latter vary from person to person. Individuals participating intensively in a certain type of sport should therefore pay attention to both the stress intensity of their activities and their individual stress resistance.