Information about project titled 'Injuries in elite male youth athletics'
Injuries in elite male youth athletics
| Details about the project - category | Details about the project - value |
|---|---|
| Project status: | Published |
| Project manager: | Daniel Martinez-Silvan |
| Supervisor(s): | Amanda Johnson, Marco Cardinale |
| Coworker(s): | Eirik Halvorsen Wik, Juan-Manuel Alonso, Evan Jeanguyot, Benjamin Salcinovic |
Description
Background: Absences due to injuries will have a negative impact on youth athletes’ development. Injury patterns in youth athletics are not well described, especially for different event groups. Furthermore, most studies only report injury incidence - injury burden could provide a more accurate picture of the injuries that have the greatest impact on participation.
Aim: To describe the injuries with the greatest injury burden specialising in different events (non-specialised, sprints, jumps, endurance and throws) in a national elite academy.
Methods: Training and injury data from 391 athlete-seasons were prospectively collected over five seasons. In total, athletes completed 72086 training or competition sessions and 290 time-loss injuries (affected participation >1 day) were recorded by the squad physiotherapists.
Implications: Bone (bone stress injuries, stress fractures and growth plate injuries) and muscle (strains/ruptures) injuries were the most burdensome and should be prioritised when planning injury reduction programmes in youth athletics. The injury pattern differed between event groups and programmes should therefore be tailored to each event (e.g. muscle strains in sprints and bone stress injuries in endurance).