@article{ref1,
title="Full-contact practice and injuries in college football",
journal="Sports health",
year="2016",
author="Steiner, Mark E. and Berkstresser, Brant D. and Richardson, Lars and Elia, Greg and Wang, Frank",
volume="8",
number="3",
pages="217-223",
abstract="BACKGROUND: Despite recent restrictions being placed on practice in college football, there are little data to correlate such changes with injuries. HYPOTHESIS: American football injuries will correlate with a team's exposure to full-contact practice, total practice, and total games. STUDY DESIGN: Descriptive epidemiological study. <br><br>METHODS: All injuries and athlete injury exposures (AE × Min = athletes exposed × activity duration in minutes) were recorded for an intercollegiate football team over 4 consecutive fall seasons. Weekly injuries and injury rates (injuries per athletic injury exposure) were correlated with the weekly exposures to full-contact practices, total practices, formal scrimmages, and games. <br><br>RESULTS: The preseason practice injury rate was over twice the in-season practice injury rate (P < 0.001). For preseason, injury exposures were higher for full-contact practice (P = 0.0166), total practices (P = 0.015), and scrimmages/games (P = 0.034) compared with in-season. Preseason and in-season practice injuries correlated with exposure to full-contact practice combined with scrimmages for preseason (P < 0.008) and full-contact practice combined with games for in-season (P = 0.0325). The game injury rate was over 6 times greater than the practice injury rate (P < 0.0001). Concussions constituted 14.5% of all injuries, and the incidence of concussions correlated with the incidence of all injuries (P = 0.0001). Strength training did not correlate with injuries. <br><br>CONCLUSION: Decreased exposure to full-contact practice may decrease the incidence of practice injuries and practice concussions. However, the game injury rate was over 6 times greater than the practice injury rate and had an inverse correlation with full-contact practice.<p /> <p>Language: en</p>",
language="en",
issn="1941-7381",
doi="10.1177/1941738115626689",
url="http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1941738115626689"
}