Time for a paradigm shift in the classification of muscle injuries

Muscle injuries remain one of the most common injuries in sport, yet despite this, there is little consensus on how to either effectively describe or determine the prognosis of a specific muscle injury. Numerous approaches to muscle classification and grading of medicine have been applied over the last century, but over the last decade the limitations of historic approaches have been recognized. As a consequence, in the past 10 years, clinical research groups have begun to question the historic approaches and reconsider the way muscle injuries are classified and described. Using a narrative approach, this manuscript describes several of the most recent attempts to classify and grade muscle injuries and highlights the relative strengths and weaknesses of each system. While each of the new classification and grading systems have strengths, there remains little consensus on a system that is both comprehensive and evidence based. Few of the currently identified features within the grading systems have relevance to accurately determining prognosis.