Citation

Owen AL, Wong DP, Dellal A, Paul DJ, Orhant E, Collie S. J. Strength Cond. Res. 2013; 27(12): 3275-3285.

Affiliation

1Sports Science Department, Rangers Football Club, Glasgow, Scotland. 2Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1, EA 642 Centre de Recherche et d'Innovation sur le Sport, Université de Lyon, Villeurbanne, France 3Department of Health and Physical Education, The Hong Kong Institute of Education, Hong Kong. 4Olympique Lyonnais Football Club, Lyon, France 5Santy Orthopedic Clinical, Sport Science and Research Department Lyon, France 6Sport Science Department, ASPETAR Sports Medicine and Orthopedic Hospital, Doha, Qatar.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2013, National Strength and Conditioning Association)

DOI

10.1519/JSC.0b013e318290cb3a

PMID

23524368

Abstract

Due to the continual physical, physiological and psychological demands of elite level soccer increasing the incidence and risk of injuries, preventative training programs have become a common feature of soccer players training schedule. The aim of the current investigation was to examine the effectiveness of a structured injury prevention program on the number of muscle injuries as well as the total number of injuries within elite professional soccer. The present study was conducted over two consecutive seasons, of which the first (2008-2009) being the intervention season and the second the control season (2009-2010). In total, 26 and 23 elite male professional soccer players competing within the Scottish Premier League and European competition participated. The training programme was performed twice weekly for the entirety of the season (58 prevention sessions). The results revealed an increase in the total number of injuries within the intervention season (88 vs. 72), however this was largely due to the greater number of contusion injuries sustained within the intervention season (n=44) when compared to control season (n=23). Significantly less muscle injuries were observed during the intervention season (moderate effect) and this occurred concomitant with a bigger squad size (large effect, p<0.001). The findings from this study identify a multi component injury prevention training program may be appropriate for reducing the number of muscle injuries during a season but may not be adequate to reduce all other injuries.

Language: en