Touch football and Oztag shoulder injuries
No tackling does not mean no shoulder injuries. Diving to score, reaching for a touch, and landing badly all produce them.
Touch and Oztag get treated as the soft option, and for the shoulder that is only half true. There is no tackle, but there is diving to ground the ball, reaching at full stretch for a touch, and getting your legs taken from under you at speed on a hard field in the middle of summer.
What that produces is the fall injury: the AC joint, the dislocation, and the arm that gets caught behind the body on the way down. On top of that there is the passing load, which for a link or a middle over a long season is a genuine volume of throwing.
These are big participation sports in the Inner West and we see a lot of them. Three of our physiotherapists have played or worked in them.
The shoulders that come off a touch field
Mostly falls, and mostly avoidable second time round.
Diving to score
Landing on an outstretched arm or the point of the shoulder, at full pace on hard ground. The classic AC joint mechanism, and the commonest shoulder injury in both codes.
The dislocation
Arm out to the side and turned back as you go down, or an arm caught as you are dragged. Less common than in a contact code but it happens, and how the first one is handled affects whether there is a second.
The passing shoulder
Ache that builds through a season for players who pass a lot, particularly in the middle. It behaves like a throwing shoulder: a capacity problem in the cuff and shoulder blade rather than a structural injury.
The mid-week accumulation
Plenty of people play two or three nights a week across summer with no preseason at all. That combination is behind more shoulder complaints than any single incident is, and it is the easiest one to fix.
Physios who play these sports
You can choose who you see when you book.
Roshan Philip
High Performance Physiotherapist
Has worked with NSW Touch Football and with APIA Leichhardt Tigers Football Club, and plays Oztag himself. Interested in post-operative rehabilitation as well as acute injuries.
AHPRA PHY0002780163
Shash Sharma
Senior Physiotherapist
The head physio for Balmain Touch. Has also worked with Sydney Scorpions Touch Football, and with foot, ankle and shoulder problems in field and court sport athletes.
AHPRA PHY0002244698
Aila Darabi
High Performance Physiotherapist
Plays touch football, and has managed her own injuries across touch, tennis, running and gym training, which shapes how she handles the return to playing.
AHPRA PHY0004038031
Where we see these
SportsFit sponsors Balmain Touch, who play at Timbrell Park about a kilometre from the Five Dock clinic. Our physiotherapists have also worked with NSW Touch Football and Sydney Scorpions Touch Football, and several of them play touch or Oztag in the Inner West themselves.
Back on the field
Most touch and Oztag shoulders are treatable while you keep running, and often while you keep playing in a reduced role. The rehab is short if it is caught early and long if it is not.
For a fall injury
- Settle and restore range, keeping running and conditioning going throughout
- Rebuild cuff and shoulder blade strength through full range
- Load the fall position deliberately, because that is how it happened and it will happen again
- Return to diving and reaching before returning to a game
For a passing shoulder
We count the passing the same way we would count bowling. Reduce the volume to a level that does not aggravate it, build strength underneath, then step it back up. In a sport played year round the load conversation is usually the whole treatment.
The preseason nobody does
The single most useful thing for a touch or Oztag player is some upper body strength work through summer, particularly for the shoulder blade and the cuff. It is a small amount of work and it is the difference between a season and a season interrupted.
Taping for a shoulder that hit the ground
The taping we use most for a shoulder hurt diving to score.
Questions we get asked
I landed on my shoulder diving to score. How do I know if it is serious?
Can I keep playing?
I play three nights a week. Is that the problem?
Shoulder sore after a game?
Book a free 30 minute call and we will tell you whether it needs an appointment or just a change in how much you are playing.
No gap on an accepted claim · You choose your own physio · Five Dock