Fatores de risco para a ocorrência de lesões em membros inferiores em atletas de atletismo: uma revisão narrativa da literatura

Abstract

Introduction: Athletics, one of the oldest and most widespread sports in the world, involves several modalities that require different physical abilities, such as strength, speed, and endurance. Despite its widespread practice, the sport has a high incidence of injuries, mainly in the lower limbs, resulting from both acute trauma and overload. Risk factors can be intrinsic or extrinsic, directly influencing the type and severity of injuries. The objective of this work is to identify and analyze the main risk factors related to the development of lower limb injuries in track and field athletes, aiming to contribute to prevention strategies and optimization of sports performance. Methods: This is a narrative literature review. The search was conducted in the PubMed, PEDro, and Scopus databases, including studies published between 1995 and 2025 in Portuguese, English, and Spanish. Original articles on risk factors for lower limb injuries in track and field athletes were analyzed, with data selection and extraction performed manually by a single reviewer. Results: The review included 7 articles, totaling 1,121 athletes of different competitive levels. These studies analyzed risk factors for lower limb injuries, including physical, physiological, training, and psychosocial aspects, in various track and field disciplines. Injury history, sex, maturational status, training load variables, and biomechanical factors were highlighted. Conclusion: The occurrence of injuries in track and field athletes results from the interaction between multiple biological, mechanical, and contextual factors. Thus, monitoring approaches that incorporate individual variability and dynamics seem more promising.