PROFILE OF MUSCULOSKELETAL PRE-SEASON SCREENING AND IN-SEASON INJURIES IN MALE YOUTH FOOTBALLERS

D. Pitt¹, M. Steele¹, M. Constantinou¹

¹Australian Catholic University, School of Allied Health, Faculty of Health Sciences, Brisbane, Australia

Background: Football is a popular team sport internationally, with around 2 million registered players in Australia alone. Of this number, 756,725 are youth players involved in a school or club program. Injuries remain a challenge in football, with up to 1 in 5 youth players sustaining an injury throughout the season and with 18% of injuries classified as severe, resulting in time loss greater than 28 days. In youth football, this time loss represents 20% of the season and a significant portion of their adolescent development. The impact of injury and associated time loss from football can have a detrimental effect on the player's physical, mental, and social wellbeing. Pre-season musculoskeletal profiles in youth footballers that may assist in identifying those at risk of injury are scarce. It is thus important to establish musculoskeletal profiles and identify youth footballers at risk of injury to guide establishment of injury prevention programs in this population.

Purpose: To identify
1) the musculoskeletal profile of Australian youth male football players,
2) the injury epidemiology and 3) any relationships between pre-season screening tests and in-season injuries within this population.

Methods: The study was an observational, retrospective cohort study. The de-identified 2021 football pre-season musculoskeletal screening test outcomes and in-season injury data were retrospectively audited for 58 male youth players aged 12 to 16 years. The players of a football club attended a pre-season musculoskeletal program consisting of muscle strength (Hip adduction at 45° and 0° hip flexion and hamstrings) and trunk endurance, range of motion (ankle weight-bearing dorsiflexion, hamstring length and hip rotation) and performance tests (single leg hop test), as per the club’s usual practice. The injuries sustained by these players during the season normally recorded by the club’s physiotherapist, included the side, body site, type, and mechanism of injury.

Results: Mean adductor strength was 120.3 (± 29.0) mmHg at 45° hip flexion and 221.9 (± 39.6) mmHg at 0° hip flexion positions. Mean ankle dorsiflexion range of motion was 10.7cm (±2.9). Mean hamstring strength was 14.4 (±3.6) Kg. There were 25 recorded first-time injuries, with the majority in the lower limb (thigh 24%, ankle 20%, knee 12%, foot/toe 12%). Mean adductor strength at 45° hip flexion was weaker (p=0.049) and ankle dorsiflexion range of motion was less (p=0.009) in the group of players that were subsequently injured versus the non-injured group. Adductor strength in 45° hip flexion was a weak predictor of injury (p=0.054) and ankle dorsiflexion range of motion was a strong predictor of injury (p=0.017) in youth male football players.

Conclusions: Developing injury prevention programs that address ankle dorsiflexion range of motion and adductor strength may help reduce injuries in male youth football players. Further research to evaluate the effectiveness of such injury prevention programs is warranted.

Implications: Profiling male youth footballers helps establish normative pre-season data for this population in Australia. Identifying ankle range of motion and adductor strength as being potential predictors for injury can assist in the development of targeted injury prevention programs to decrease the burden of injury.

Funding acknowledgements: There was no funding associated with this study

Keywords:
Football
Adolescent
injury prevention

Topics:
Sport & sports injuries
Musculoskeletal: lower limb
Musculoskeletal: peripheral

Did this work require ethics approval? Yes

Institution: Australian Catholic University

Committee: Human Research Ethics Committee

Ethics number: 2021-295N