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Randomized Controlled Trial
. 2008 Dec 9:337:a2469.
doi: 10.1136/bmj.a2469.

Comprehensive warm-up programme to prevent injuries in young female footballers: cluster randomised controlled trial

Torbjørn Soligard  1 , Grethe Myklebust, Kathrin Steffen, Ingar Holme, Holly Silvers, Mario Bizzini, Astrid Junge, Jiri Dvorak, Roald Bahr, Thor Einar Andersen
Affiliations
Randomized Controlled Trial

Comprehensive warm-up programme to prevent injuries in young female footballers: cluster randomised controlled trial

Torbjørn Soligard et al. BMJ. .

Abstract

Objective: To examine the effect of a comprehensive warm-up programme designed to reduce the risk of injuries in female youth football.

Design: Cluster randomised controlled trial with clubs as the unit of randomisation.

Setting: 125 football clubs from the south, east, and middle of Norway (65 clusters in the intervention group; 60 in the control group) followed for one league season (eight months).

Participants: 1892 female players aged 13-17 (1055 players in the intervention group; 837 players in the control group).

Intervention: A comprehensive warm-up programme to improve strength, awareness, and neuromuscular control during static and dynamic movements.

Main outcome measure: Injuries to the lower extremity (foot, ankle, lower leg, knee, thigh, groin, and hip).

Results: During one season, 264 players had relevant injuries: 121 players in the intervention group and 143 in the control group (rate ratio 0.71, 95% confidence interval 0.49 to 1.03). In the intervention group there was a significantly lower risk of injuries overall (0.68, 0.48 to 0.98), overuse injuries (0.47, 0.26 to 0.85), and severe injuries (0.55, 0.36 to 0.83).

Conclusion: Though the primary outcome of reduction in lower extremity injury did not reach significance, the risk of severe injuries, overuse injuries, and injuries overall was reduced. This indicates that a structured warm-up programme can prevent injuries in young female football players.

Trial registration: ISRCTN10306290.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing interests: None declared.

Figures

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Fig 1 Two examples of strength exercises. Top: side plank exercise. Bottom: the “Nordic hamstring lower”
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Fig 2 Example of running exercise illustrating key objectives of all running, jumping, cutting, and landing exercises: core stability and correct lower extremity alignment. Left: correct technique; right: incorrect technique with pelvic tilt and knee valgus alignment to right
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Fig 3 Flow of club clusters and players through study
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Fig 4 Survival curves based on Cox regression for players with lower extremity injury and severe injury
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Comment in

References

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