Stress Fractures

In brief We studied 3 years of stress fractures that occurred at a major university. We found an annual Incidence of 1.9% among athletes, but 67% of the injuries were in freshmen. In 86% of the cases, patients had abruptly changed their training-such as after summer break-and experienced symptoms an average of 4.5 weeks later. Students took, on average, another 3.5 weeks to seek medical care. These findings emphasize the need to carefully monitor freshman training regimens and to be alert for symptoms of stress fracture.