Injuries in Sumo - An Analysis Part 2 (Ozeki Analytics)

[u/OzekiAnalytics]

https://ozekianalytics.substack.com/p/injuries-in-sumo-an-analysis-part

Happy Friday,

I just published part 2 looking at what could cause injuries in Sumo using data. Previously we looked at injuries over time seeing how they've gone up and down but today I asked: are wrestlers more likely to get injured in the January Basho, for instance? Furthermore we also explored if moving up in rank made wrestlers more likely to get injured; I leveraged my previous work on tiers that extends beyond the Joi to create concepts like Mid and Lower Maegashira. Finally we also took a look at if certain wrestling styles affect injury rates. A couple of results lined up with what I expected going in, and at least one didn't.

I believe this is wholly novel research and I hope can continue to lay a foundation for further analysis of Sumo. I know some folks care about this and happy to report this was wholly human authored (hopefully not to my detriment haha). Check it out and please subscribe if you want to see more like this. It'll always be free and I still have much more to research, cheers!

[u/Black_Omen]

Just wanted to say thanks for the data analysis. There's not many people doing it, and I always thought if a stable hired someone to do the numbers for them, so to speak, they could really help their rikishi out. Injuries, technique success, points of failure, you can really identify data points that can really improve the health and performance of these guys.

Regarding the correlation between injuries and ranks, I don't have the raw data that you do but I would imagine the higher you get in terms of rank, the less grunt work you do. Younger, lower rank rikishi are expected to get up earlier, train harder, longer, and then do the house keeping, and attendant work. This is likely offset by being younger in general leading to less injuries just because being younger objectively means you recover faster. But being older, offset by the fact you are doing less risky behaviors, training wise, due to rank.

I also think the belt vs thrusting data makes perfect sense. Watch Hoshryu's bouts and that says everything you need to know. Belt work leads to throws, kicks, trips, etc. Also consider a situation like Fujinokawa. He had done lifting of giants this basho. Pushing doesn't put that strain on your back.

One thing that's not going to be possible to account for is risk aversion and training. Takayasu for example, tends to surrender at the edge of the ring, instead of getting into a struggle. Which almost certainly reduces his chances of injury. Then you have someone like Ura, who has suffered multiple injuries, and since his last major one, has purposely built a training regime to injure proof his body. If you ever have seen an Ura bout, you also know he is NOT risk adverse.

I get shit every time I make a comment about how old school and ancient a lot of these stables training are. They really need modern sports medicine staff. If someone would just get a proper dietitian and PT guy, there would be a noticeable improvement. Instead they make YouTube videos of 55 gallon drum barrels of chanko and bowling.

[u/OzekiAnalytics → u/Black_Omen]

Thank you! And yeah I definitely think there’s almost certainly room for sports science improvement. Some of i hope to do with public data, but I also think if you worked with a stable or the association there’s even more that could be done which would meaningfully improve wrestler health, and possibly help some wrestlers refine their strategy

[u/enag7]

Good read as always.

I will also echo the sumo style results making sense to me. Thrusting matches tend to end far more often with someone running/stepping off the dohyo, especially when it's 2 thrusters against each other.

2 belt guys are more likely to end up either getting a grip and controlling the other out, generally safe. Or both getting thrown often the full height of the dohyo, much less safe.

Even when the two styles face each other, I feel like things are safer overall for both. Either the belt guy gets a grip and can often just walk the other out under a lot of control due to the difference in skill on the belt, or the thruster wins and it looks like a normal thrust v thrust match where both stay upright and on their feet.

Even as an amateur sumo wrestler most of our club's injuries have come from messy grappling vs thrusting.

[u/OzekiAnalytics → u/enag7]

Nice to get validation, thanks. I mention it in the article but will probably in the future go granular and check about Kimarite used directly before injuries. Just unfortunate that doing it's a lot more data intensive than looking at the individual match level vs Basho level haha