Occurrence of Athletic Injuries in Voluntary Participants in a 1-Year Extensive Newspaper Exercise Campaign

In 1977 the newspaper Ostgötacorrespondenten (Corren) started a 1-year campaign for better health. The campaign was called "Piggare med Corren" (get fit with the Corren) and included antismoking, dietary, and exercise components. It was given widespread publicity in the newspaper. The purpose of the study was to examine the extent of self-reported exercise injuries in volunteers who diligently participated in a newspaper campaign. Information was collected from questionnaires sent to the most persistent participants after the campaign; 60% answered the questionnaire. An analysis of the dropouts showed that they had not started to exercise to the same extent as the others. Only 5% said that they had not exercised before the campaign; 6.7% reported that they were injured in connection with their exercising during the campaign in such a way that they had to interrupt their exercise. Thirty-seven persons had called a doctor and 19 persons were reported sick during for an average of 1 month because of the exercise injuries. There were significantly more regular exercisers who had been highly active before the campaign among those who had been injured compared with those who were not injured.