What are the uses of sports injury prevention and first aid?

To put it bluntly, the core purpose of sports injury prevention and first aid is to provide two layers of safety bottom line for all sports people. One is to avoid unnecessary injuries and losses, and the other is to minimize injuries when accidents occur, and even save lives. Last month our running group went to the suburbs for a half-marathon. One of the eldest brothers, who usually had perfect physical examinations, suddenly fell down while holding his chest at 17 kilometers. His face turned pale instantly. There happened to be a runner in the team who had passed the first aid certificate. He immediately judged that it was a sign of myocardial ischemia. He immediately performed CPR and contacted a nearby station to get an AED. After struggling for less than five minutes, he recovered. The track was off that day, and it took at least 20 minutes to get there at 120. If no one knows first aid, I really can’t imagine the consequences.

Compared with first aid, which provides emergency relief at critical moments, the value of prevention is much more subtle, but its impact is also longer-lasting. I met a kid who was born after 2000 in an amateur basketball game. He took advantage of his youth and good physical fitness. He never wore an ankle brace when he played for two years. He just shook his arms and legs a few times and rushed to the court to warm up. Last month, when he landed on a rebound, he couldn't stand firm and twisted his foot. He went to the hospital to check whether it was an ankle brace. The cruciate ligament was ruptured, and the surgery and recovery cost him less than RMB 100,000. He couldn't touch the ball for at least half a year. The doctor in charge said that if he had paid attention to strengthening his ankle joint and lower limbs, wore an ankle brace when playing intensive games, and fully activated his hips, knees and ankles during warm-ups, this injury could have been avoided 99% of the time.

Nowadays, many people feel that "I am not a professional athlete, I just take walks on weekdays and occasionally play fieldball on weekends. Learning these is completely redundant." They even think that wearing protective gear and doing functional training in advance is "very squeamish." This view is really not a minority, especially many aunts who dance square dances all year round and office workers who suddenly move after sitting for a long time. Either they feel that there is no risk in the amount of exercise, or they feel that if they are really injured, they can just go to the hospital directly, but they will not know until later when something happens. Last time there was an uncle downstairs in our community who sprained his foot while playing badminton. The kind-hearted neighbor next to him rubbed his foot for a long time. When he was sent to the hospital, it was found that it was only a mild bone fracture, but the rubbing caused the bone to become misaligned. He had to have an extra reset, and he suffered for half a month for nothing.

I used to make an analogy with a friend who has just started running. These two things are like the daily maintenance and helmet when you ride an electric bike. Pay more attention to whether the brakes are working and the tires are not fully inflated. It is a precautionary measure that can avoid the risk of crashing halfway. If you are accidentally hit by someone else, the helmet is the line of defense at the bottom of the first aid bag, which can protect your most vital parts from being injured. Without these two things, no matter how careful you are, you will not be able to survive an accident. If you really want to consider cost-effectiveness, spending more than ten minutes to learn the correct warm-up movements, spending dozens of dollars to buy suitable protective gear, and spending two hours to take the junior first aid certificate is much more cost-effective than spending tens of thousands of dollars on medical treatment and months of recovery after you are injured. After all, if the injury is serious, you may not even have the opportunity to exercise with confidence in the future.