An Easy Guide to Identifying Quadricep Injury Types
One of the most common injury types among athletes is the quadricep injury. Unless it involves direct trauma to the area (crushing, contusions, etc), tearing and straining are generally the cause of any quadricep injury. If you’ve recently undergone a strain or tear in your quadriceps, you may be wondering to what degree you’ve been injured and what you should do about it.
This guide provides information on the different types of common injuries athletes experience, but if you have a major quadricep injury, it is important that you seek out medical attention immediately in order to avoid any permanent damage or loss of mobility.
Types of Injuries
Injuries to the quadriceps are usually classified by three types of severity, or grades. Grade I is a mild strain to your quads. It involves a slightly pulled muscle, but no actual tearing of your tendons or muscle fibers. Pain is present, but there is no loss of strength with a Grade I injury.
A Grade II injury is considered a moderate quadricep injury. In Grade II injuries, the muscle is strained to the point of tearing the muscle fibers or the tendons, or even at the bone attachment. There is a loss of strength in Grade II injuries, but proper care and rehabilitation can return strength and mobility to 100%.
Grade III injuries are severe strains that result in a rupture involving your muscle, tendon, and bone attachment, with a complete separation of the fibers. Grade III injuries may require your doctor to schedule surgery in order to help repair the injured fibers.
How to Tell if You’re Injured
Many people attribute any muscle pain they may suffer to good exercise and healthy muscle strain. While that can be true in certain instances, a legitimate quad injury is nothing to shrug off. Luckily, most athletes can tell if they’ve significantly injured their quad because they feel explosive muscle pain as they contract. If you continue trying to perform at maximum capacity, you will find this very difficult, even with Grade I injuries. Once you’ve cooled down you will be able to better determine the severity of your injury.
If you’ve suffered from a Grade I strain, you will experience localized tenderness of the quad muscles and muscles spasms above and below the injury site. You will experience pain if you try to extend your knee or bend it while prone.
Grade II strains are similar in symptoms, but to a much stronger degree. The pain may be quite intense, and if you’re in the middle of a game, you will likely need assistance getting off the field or court.
Grade III injuries are very serious and easy to spot. Generally you will be able to see and feel the muscle injury in the form of muscle bunching with every contraction. Eventually a hematoma will form, and this bunching will not be as observable. Although the bunching may be disturbing, it will rarely cause you any permanent functional defects.
What to Do
If you’ve experienced a strain or tear, the best thing you can do is implement the R.I.C.E. program (rest, ice, compression, elevation). This is especially important in Grade I and II injuries, since they rarely require any extensive follow up care. Your doctor will be able to prescribe pain medication for you to keep discomfort down to a minimum while your muscles repairs itself.
If you’ve suffered a Grade III injury, stop all movement and activity at once and get immediate medical treatment. Your injury may be bad enough that it requires surgery, but at the very least, you will be placed on a strict muscle rehabilitation program after an initial rest period.
Please contact a doctor if you have injured your quadriceps or are experiencing moderate to severe pain in that region.