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I’ve played lacrosse for as long as I could remember and I always wondered if it is possible to break a bone with a lacrosse stick. This led me to do thorough research about how fast a lacrosse stick has to go to actually break a bone when hitting someone. This is what I found.
In general, it is possible for a lacrosse stick to break a bone depending on how fast it is swung and where it hits a person. However, it is very rare to break a bone when getting hit by a lacrosse stick since it is usually not swung at very high speeds during a normal lacrosse game.
While it is very rare to break a bone with a lacrosse stick, it’s still a possibility. I personally never seen anyone break a bone when getting hit by a lacrosse stick. After looking into this topic more in-depth, I found some interesting facts that you might want to know.
Can a Lacrosse Stick Break a Bone?
While it is possible to break a bone when getting hit with a lacrosse stick, it is very uncommon. Factors such as swing speed, area of impact, gender of the person, and whether the person is standing or laying down affect the likeliness of breaking a bone when getting hit by a lacrosse stick.
Some people consider bone fractures the same as bone breaks and others think that these are two separate things.
I personally consider them as two different things. With that in mind, more people experienced bone fractures while playing lacrosse than bone breaks.
I found a full article from NCBI’s website about lacrosse musculoskeletal injuries that speak about fractures that occur in the sport of lacrosse. This article states:
“The hand/wrist is the most commonly fractured site in girls’ lacrosse.”
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
In this article NCBI also states “Boys and men incur head or facial fractures at a frequency of 3% to 3.5% of all head injuries, whereas girls and women incur higher fracture frequencies of 14.0% to 20.9% of all head injuries.”
While they don’t speak about bone breaks specifically, they did talk about bone fractures. Although these concepts can be the same, bone fractures are still not really common in the hold sport of lacrosse.
Statistically speaking, the number of bone fractures that could occur from a lacrosse stick alone is most likely even rarer than the small percentage of fractures that occur in the hole sport.
As seen in the quote, these statistics change when it comes to the gender of the person experiencing the fracture.
*By the way, I recently wrote an article that talks about Why Your Lacrosse Stick Throws Down. This article explains why your stick throws down and talks about how to fix and prevent your stick from throwing down. You can check out this article here!
How Fast Would a Lacrosse Stick Have to Travel to Break a Bone?
On average, a lacrosse stick would have to be swung at speeds of above 11 miles an hour (17.7 Kilometers) when hitting a person to break a bone depending on some factors. Since a lacrosse stick is made of a solid piece of wood, it could break a thin bone such as a collar bone if swung at this speed.
Obviously, breaking or fracturing a bone by a lacrosse stick varies based on a lot of things.
The worst possible outcome could be if a person gets hit by a lacrosse stick while they are laying on the ground. Since their body doesn’t have any room to move following a stick hit, the stick would most likely break through the density of the bone.
Gravity will also add speed to the lacrosse stick while it travels towards the ground making it more likely to break a bone at a higher speed.
Choosing the right lacrosse stick for you is one of the most important things to do. After having many lacrosse sticks throughout the years, the best one that I came across was the STX Lacrosse Fortress 700 Complete Stick. This lacrosse stick comes with a Crux Mesh Pro Pocket and is perfect for any lacrosse player to use. You can check out this Stick on Amazon!
However, a person could get hit in their safety equipment and walk out without any broken or fractured bones. Just like in most other contact sports, lacrosse safety equipment is meant to absorb and deflect any incoming hits.
Remember to always wear your safety equipment!
All of this also depends on how which bone is hit. As I mentioned above, a collar bone is a bone that doesn’t have a lot of muscle surrounding it to protect it from a hit.
A femur bone (the top leg bone), on the other hand, is surrounded by the quadriceps and hamstring muscles which makes it more protected from any incoming hits.
*By the way, I recently wrote an article about If It Is Possible for A Lacrosse Ball To Break A Bone. This article talks about if it is possible to break a bone when getting hit by a lacrosse ball and what to expect. You can check out this article here!
Does Getting Hit with a Lacrosse Stick Hurt?
Since a lacrosse stick is made of solid wood, it will hurt when you will get hit by one. However, if you are wearing the proper lacrosse safety equipment, it is less likely to hurt when getting hit by a lacrosse stick. Safety equipment cushions the impact of the lacrosse ball when it hits the body.
Since a lacrosse stick is basically a long wooden shaft, it will definitely hurt if you got hit by a stick swinging at you at an average of 10 miles an hour.
A lacrosse stick gets swung a lot of times during a game by all of the players making it very likely to hit someone on accident.
You need to shoot the ball into the goal with the lacrosse swing, most of the time even very close to other players.
I’ve personally gotten hit many times by a lacrosse stick and on average, some of the hits stung. However, I never got hit by a stick hard enough to break a bone or cause me to come out of the game.
When I need to restring my lacrosse head (which is pretty often), my favorite mesh to use is the ECD Lacrosse Hero 3.0. I recently came across this Complete Kit of Lacrosse Mesh and HeroStrings on Amazon and I never needed anything else. You can check it out on Amazon!
What are the Most Common Injuries in Lacrosse?
The most common injuries in lacrosse are wrist fractures, knee sprains, ankle sprains, concussions, and contusions. These injuries are common in lacrosse since it is a contact sport and can sometimes be rough. Make sure to play safely and always wear your lacrosse safety equipment.
Lacrosse players all around the world have experienced some kind of injuries when playing lacrosse. Some fractures and some sprains.
This is very similar to other contact sports as they all require some kind of physical contact that could lead to injury.
As a contact sports player, you always have to make sure to play safe, wear your safety equipment, and always be mindful of others on the field!
*Side Note: I recently wrote an article about How Fast Can Lacrosse PLayers Shoot The Ball. This article breaks down the average speed of players shooting lacrosse balls as well as how to improve the speed of your shot while playing lacrosse. You can check out this article here!
