Spinal and Paraspinal Injuries from Weightlifting in Minors

Weightlifting is a common form of exercise, especially among adolescents. Many exercises can put the spine and paraspinal muscles under a great deal of stress, both directly with back exercises and indirectly through loading exercises like squats. The national incidence of weightlifting injuries to the spinal and paraspinal regions in minors has yet to be determined.

The National Electronic Injury Surveillance System was queried between 2004 and 2023 for emergency department visits by minors for injuries sustained from weightlifting using the product code for weightlifting and body part codes neck, upper trunk, and lower trunk to capture spinal and paraspinal injuries in the cervical, thoracic, and lumbar regions, respectively. Narratives were then screened for relevance, specific diagnoses, and exercises performed. Weighted survey analysis was used to determine incidence rates and 95% CIs, and linear regression was used to determine time trends. P < 0.05 was considered significant. Statistical analyses were performed in R software.

The search resulted in 1440 injury accounts, for a weighted estimate of 53,017 national emergency department visits for minors with spinal and paraspinal injuries sustained while weightlifting. Muscular strain was the most common injury reported (64%). Furthermore, most of these strains were in the lumbar region (63%). A total of 241 resulting queries indicated a specific exercise; squats (46%) and deadlifts (30%) were the leading causes.

Paraspinal muscular strains, from squatting and deadlifts, were the most common back injuries to minors while weightlifting. Education and emphasis on proper form is required.