Intervention for the Prevention of Football-Related Physical Performance and Ankle Sprains in Young Male Players

Abstract

Abstract

Ankle sprains are among the most common injuries in the physically active population. The number of injuries can be anticipated to increase because of the increasing popularity of the sport worldwide and the higher incidence of ankle injuries among young males compared with females. The prevention program (PP) has been designed to prevent the most common injury of ankle ligaments in football. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of the ‘‘PP’’ on ankle sprains and performance after an 8-week training period. Forty-five adolescent male football players were randomly assigned to either an intervention (n=23) or a control group (n=22). The incidence of injury per 1000 hours of training and playing soccer was 7.3 in the intervention group and 9.2 in the control group, which equates to 23% fewer injuries in the intervention group. In conclusion, the ankle injuries can be reduced by preventive interventions, especially ankle ligaments. In addition, effects was observed on a series of performance tests in a group of adolescent male football players using the ‘‘PP’’ as a structured warm-up program.

Keywords:  Ankle sprains, performance, football players, young males, prevention program.