From the Departments of †Orthopedics and ‡Diagnostic Radiology, Sahlgren Hospital,

The lifetime incidence and prevalence of low back pain among 32 retired wrestlers (ages 39 to 62 years) and 13 retired heavyweight lifters (ages 40 to 61 years) were evaluated and compared to the corresponding results in a cross-sectional study of 716 men (ages 40 to 47 years). The radiologic findings and the findings upon physical examination in the athletes were com-pared to the findings in another study of normal, active, similarly aged men who were sampled at random. The lifetime incidence and prevalence of low back pain was higher among the wrestlers (59%) compared with both the lifters (23%) and the control group (31%). The tolerance for backache seemed to be higher among the athletes than the controls. A higher frequency of old fractures was found among the wrestlers. The athletes with fractures had a higher frequency of low back pain. A significant decrease in disk height was found among the lifters. Major, acute injuries, sustained during wrestling, are most frequent in the head and neck, the knees, the shoulders, the ribs, and the low back.l l, 13,19, 20, 24 Minor injuries, such as finger sprains, contusions, mat burns, and skin infections, are also frequent. Low back injuries are frequent in heavy-weight lifting, and low back pain (LBP) is the dominating complaint among weightlifters.2,3,12 The frequency of LBP is increasing with age.6-8 The lifetime incidence of LBP among Swedish men (the fre-quency of men that have LBP at present or have had LBP any time before) between 40 and 60 years of age, has been found to vary between 60 % and 70%.7,8,22 The prevalence in the male population (the frequency of men with LBP at the time of the study) of the same age has been found to be 30% * Address correspondence and reprnt requests to: Hans Granhed, MD