Siewe (2014) assessed the risk of injury during training for competitive bodybuilding by collecting questionnaires from 71 competitive and elite bodybuilders. They found that 45.1% of the subjects reported some symptoms of physical injury while training but the overall injury rate was just 0.24 injuries per 1,000 hours of training. The most common regions injured were the shoulder, elbow, lumbar spine and knee. The researchers concluded that injury rate is low compared to other weightlifting disciplines such as powerlifting, Olympic weightlifting or strongman.
Keogh (2006) assessed injury incidence in 82 male and 19 female competitive open and masters powerlifters over a 1-year period. They defined injury as any physical damage leading to a missed or modified training session or competition. The injury rate was 4.4 injuries per 1,000 hours of training and the most commonly-injured body regions were the shoulder (36%), low back (24%), elbow (11%), and knee (9%).
if we are to draw any conclusion about the relative risks associated with injury rate in strength sports, it is that bodybuilding training is less injurious than training for other strength sports.
