Various studies have focused on sport injuries.^1,2 In a previous report the incidence of injuries in athletes in a one year study was analysed using a sample size that was less than 150 subjects.¹ It was hypothesised that subjects who were more involved in sport before injury (eight hours or more a week of sport and exercise) would exhibit a greater emotional response to injury and perceive their recovery to be less.²

In view of this we analysed a large sample of athletes (2701) who trained a minimum of 10 hours a week to see in which months of the year athletic training injuries were most common.

In a one year prospective study (from January 2004 to December 2004) we recorded the number of training injuries sustained in a month by month fashion. The mean (SD) age of the subjects was 39.62 (12.98) (range 14–63).

We recorded a total of 450 athletic training injuries. The greatest number of injuries were recorded in January (n = 71; 15.8%) followed by February (n = 64; 14.2%), March (n = 56; 12.4%), May (n = 54; 12.0%), April (n = 47; 10.4%), December (n = 37; 8.2%), June (n = 34; 7.5%), September (n = 29; 6.4%), July (n = 27; 6.0%), November (n = 22; 4.9%), August (n = 7; 1.5%), and October (n = 2; 0.4%).

A total of 191 injuries (42.4%) were recorded between January and March, 135 (30.0%) between April and June, 63 (14.0%) between July and September, and 61 (13.5%) between October and December. The total recorded between January and June was 326 (72.4%) compared with 124 (27.5%) between July and December.

In summary, our study has shown that the number of athletic training injuries was higher during the first semester of the year than the second.