The baseline assessment as well as the questionnaire showed several differences between the injured and the uninjured players. This allowed us identify 17 risk factors for injuries covering a wide spectrum of issues such as previous injuries, acute complaints, inadequate rehabilitation, poor health awareness, life-event stress, playing characteristics, slow reaction time, low endurance, insufficient preparation for games and more. In a next step, the individual risk factors were added and a predictive sum was calculated for each player. We hypothesised that the more baseline risk factors present, the higher the probability of that player incurring an injury in the ensuing year.
P2 - Describe preventative measures that can be taken in order to prevent sports injuries occurring
Some football injuries happen just as accidents anywhere: unpredictably and inevitably. But mostly, injuries can be avoided. Make sure you know how.
To become a better player, preventing injury is as important as training: you can stay on the pitch and perfect your skills. Learn how to protect yourself and everyone else:
1. Always fully recover after an injury
If there is one proven risk for injury, it is an incompletely healed previous injury. Return to play too early and you risk that your body is not yet able to cope with the stress. No match is so important. Team up with your doctor and physio to make the right choice.
2. Protect yourself with the right equipment
Shin guards protect your lower leg from bone fractures during training and matches. They need to be individually fitted to be long and wide enough to cover your whole lower leg.
Use taping or a brace after an ankle sprain as it helps to prevent a re-injury.
Goalkeepers should wear padded uniforms to protect hips, elbows and shoulders (knees during training), and proper gloves.
3. Fair Play: Respect the Laws of the Game
The Laws of the Game protect your health in that they prohibit dangerous actions known to cause severe injuries, for example when you thrust your elbow outwards in head duels. Referees will rigorously sanction players who act so ruthlessly to ignore fair play.
4. Regularly do protective exercises
Your body has natural defence mechanisms against injuries that you can train to become more “resistant” to injuries. Prevention programmes combine exercises training this defence in a structured way. But the greatest programme is not going to have much of an effect if not performed regularly. Make the “11+ - a complete warm-up to prevent injuries” part of your training routine!
M1 - Explain how risk factors can be minimised by utilisation of preventative measures
Most prevention programmes include the following general activities:
• Warm up and cool down with special emphasis on stretching
• Adequate rehabilitation and time for recovery from an injury
• Improvement in fitness with special emphasis on proprioceptive training
• Protective equipment
• Good playing field conditions
• Fair Play
Other programmes add further items to this general list such as pre-competition screening, nutrition and hydration, improved technique and better injury recording.
P4 - Describe the psychological responses common to sports injuries
Opposed to external influences, primary player-relate risk factors in risk assessment are psychological components. It had been shown that they do not only affect the overall performance of a player, but also his injury risk. Most investigations in this regard were based on either a stress theory or a personality-profile approach. Although the majority of these studies had employed different methods, the results were in general agreement that “life events” can influence the risk of injury in athletes. Life events are important circumstances in one’s recent history such as death of a parent, spouse, or child, divorce, change in job, residential move, personal illness, and many