Scandinavian journal of medicine & science in sports
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Scand J Med Sci Sports · Oct 2018
No association between rate of torque development and onset of muscle activity with increased risk of hamstring injury in elite football.
Hamstring injuries remain a significant burden in sports that involve high-speed running. In elite male football, hamstring injury has repeatedly been identified as the most common non-contact injury, representing 12% of all injuries. As the incidence remains high, investigations are aimed at better understanding how to improve prevention efforts. ⋯ For both onset of muscle activity and rate of torque development, there were no significant differences between any of the variables (P > .05), with small effect sizes detected across all the different variables (d < 0.3). Rate of torque development and onset of muscle activity were not associated with a risk of future hamstring injury. The use of these measures as part of a periodic health evaluation to identify risk of hamstring injury is unsupported.
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Scand J Med Sci Sports · Oct 2018
Return to play, performance, and career duration after anterior cruciate ligament rupture: A case-control study in the five biggest football nations in Europe.
A media-based collection and further analysis of relative return to play (RTP) rates and the corresponding quality of play after anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) rupture in top-level football was the aim of our study. In the 5-year case-control study, male players from the first two leagues of the five top leagues in Europe, who sustained a total ACL rupture during the season 2010/11 and/or 2011/12, were included. For them and a matched control sample (ratio 1:2), data were retrieved from the publicly available and validated media-based platforms (transfermarkt.de & whoscored.com) until the end of season 2016/17. ⋯ Survival analysis revealed a systematic group difference in career duration compared to controls (Cox-Mantel's χ2 = 5.8; P = 0.016). Game performance (scoring points, P < 0.001; rates/number of completed passes, P = 0.048; and minutes played, P < 0.001) was lower in the ACL athletes than in the matching group in the RTP and post-RTP seasons. Although absolute and relative RTP rates after ACL reconstruction are high in professional football, career duration and game performance are lower than in the reference group.