Karate

Karate is a popular combat sports that originated from Japan after the ‘Taiso era’ of 1912 – 1926. The popular martial art developed form the indigenous martial arts in the Okinawan Island. In 1922 karate was introduced into the Japanese university Keio, it was at this university the minister of education in Japan invited Gichin Funakoshi (the founder of the widely used Shotokan karate-do) to perform a karate demonstration. Two years after the demonstration the university hosting the initaly demonstration established the first Karate class. By 1932 all the major Japanese universities had a karate club. Most recently almost 100 years since the first university demonstration, Karate was included in the Olympic games as the most recent combat sport. Karate can be practiced in multiple ways, with the strict art or kata form known as ‘budo’ or as self-defence/combat sport.

The bout concludes when an athlete reaches 8 points or when the 3 minutes runs out. In 2020 a systematic literature review with meta-analysis looked at the injury rates in Karate. Lystad al identify the total reported injury rates in Karate competition and was able to provide pooled estimates of injury. A reported incidence rate of 88.3 injuries per 1000 athlete exposures, or 39.2 injuries per 1000 minutes of exposure. That is 1 injury every 11exposures (bouts) or 1 injury every 25 minutes of competition. Whilst combat sports like Karate promotes a very healthy way of lifestyle competitive participation can result in injury. To date, there are no best practice injury prevention guidelines that reduce the injury incidence in Karate. Considering this, it is important to maintain strength and mobility whilst training Karate.