Preventing Injuries in Young Football Players

Study Overview
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Brief Summary
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Football is the most popular sport in the world, with 260 million male and female active participants, including  113,000 FIFA registered professional players. Playing football is fun and can provide many health benefits, however, it also presents a high injury risk. Studies on elite and non-elite footballers have reported similar injury rates in both genders. The most common football-related injuries are the knee and ankle ligament and thigh muscle strains, Over the past two decades, significant advancement has been made in the field of injury prevention in football. There are used trials to prevent specific injuries, as ankle sprain, ACL injuries, hamstring strains, etc. On the other hand, there are created programs designed to prevent a wider spectrum of injuries like FIFA11+. Therefore, the aim of this study is to investigate the effect of a new injury prevention program on the overall injury incidence in young football players.

Official Title
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Preventing Injuries in Young Football Players: a Cluster Randomised Controlled Trial

Conditions
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Injury Prevention

Intervention / Treatment
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* Other: Injury prevention program


Participation Criteria
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Eligibility Criteria
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Inclusion Criteria: officially registered football club in the football federation of Kosovo players must be between 13-19 years old regular training must take place at least three times per week Exclusion Criteria: teams already using an injury prevention program injured players

Ages Eligible for Study
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Minimum Age: 13 Years
Maximum Age: 19 Years

Sexes Eligible for Study
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Male

Accepts Healthy Volunteers
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Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Study Plan
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How is the study designed?
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Design Details

Primary Purpose: Prevention
Allocation: Randomized
Intervention Model: Parallel Assignment
Interventional Model Description: Cluster randomised controlled trial
Masking: Single


Arms and Interventions

| Participant Group/Arm | Intervention/Treatment |
| --- | --- |
| Experimental: Intervention<br>The intervention group will use the new injury prevention program at least twice per week in their training sessions. | Other: Injury prevention program<br>* The execution of the program takes 10-15 minutes. The program will be performed in the training sessions, after the usual warm-up. The program is based on scientific evidence that has previously shown good efficacy on injury prevention in football. The exercise categories address 7 aspects: Balance Core stability Hamstring eccentrics Glute activation Plyometrics Running Games The games are included with the aim to increase the attractiveness of the program. Each category contains 2 exercises and the coach is free to decide which one to choose in every training session. All exercises are organized in five or six levels with increasing difficulty (physically and cognitively).<br>|
| No Intervention: Control<br>The control group will continue their usual training routine. | |

What is the study measuring?
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Primary Outcome Measures

| Outcome Measure | Measure Description | Time Frame |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Overall injury rate |  | up to 9 months |