Injury Prevention in Youth Tackle Football
Creators: name: Cairns, Joshua Thomas
Publisher: name: Kinesiology
Year: 2023
Subjects: subject: Tackle Football
subject: Injury
subject: Prevention
subject: Training Strategies
subject: Concussion
subject: Canada
subject: Epidemiology

description: This thesis contains two projects that aim to investigate injury and injury prevention strategies in Canadian adolescent tackle football. The first project aimed to examine the current utilization of Neuromuscular Training components (NMT) in tackle football warm-ups and the second project examined adolescent (ages 14-17) tackle football epidemiology. Objectives: 1. To describe the current time spent by adolescent tackle football teams in five key neuromuscular training (NMT) components (aerobic, agility, balance and coordination, strength, and head on neck control) and determine if time in warm-up components differed throughout the season. 2. To describe injury rates, burden, types, mechanisms, and risk factors in adolescent (ages 14-17) community tackle football players in one season. Methods: Teams consented to video-recording of practice and game warm-ups. Video was analyzed using Dartfish tagging software (Dartfish, USA). Validated injury surveillance methods were used during a prospective cohort in a single nine-week competition season for participants aged 14-17. Injury rates (IR), concussion rates (CR), and incidence rate ratios (IRR) were reported based on univariable Poisson regression analyses (offset by player-hours and controlling for cluster by team). Results: Teams spent a median of 456.2 seconds in warm-up prior to sessions and a median time of 275 seconds in active warm-up components. Teams spent more time in some NMT components (aerobic and strength) compared to others (balance, agility and coordination, and head on neck control), however other than aerobic (58%) the use of other NMT components was low (time in NMT components 1-9%). Teams were relatively consistent with component utilization throughout the season. The overall IR was 4.61 injuries/1000 player-hours (95%CI; 3.84 – 5.53) and the CR was 1.20 concussions/1000 player-hours (95%CI; 0.90-1.61). Concussion rates were higher in games (IR=3.86 concussions/1000 player game-hours 95%CI; 2.74 – 5.43) than practices (IR=0.44 concussions/1000 practice player hours, 95%CI;0.25 – 0.75) (IRR=8.82,95%CI; 4.52- 18.27). Previous history of injury in the past 12 months (IRR=1.66,95%CI; 1.07-2.57) and being obese (BMI &gt; 30.00) (IRR=2.55, 95%CI; 1.35-4.84) were associated with higher rates of practice-related injury. Lifetime history of concussion (IRR=1.58, 95%CI; 1.00 – 2.50) and being in the 75th percentile for height (IRR=1.58, 95%CI; 1.19 – 2.18) were associated with higher game-related injury rates, with the former being insignificant and the latter significant. Conclusions: Injury and concussion rates are high in adolescent tackle football. There are opportunities for research examining injury and concussion prevention strategies in tackle football in Canada. Football teams do not engage in NMT warm-up components and there is significant opportunity for implementation of such a prevention strategy in this sport.