How to warm up smarter to prevent injuries

by James Hubbard, M.D., M.P.H.

Everyone’s heard you should get a little loose and do some slow exercises before you start the real stuff. But investigators in Norway went way beyond stretching and showed a significant decrease in injuries in teenage, female soccer players (pdf file) by doing so. They were concerned there were too many injuries in these young athletes and decided to try a rigid, 20-minute exercise program prior to practices and games, called the 11 Injury Prevention Program.

The exercises–specific running, jumping and stretching activities–attempt to build core stability, strength and balance. Compliance was improved by providing coaches with DVDs, posters, exercise cards and telephone feedback. The control group just warmed up in their usual manner.

At the end of the season there were one-third fewer overall injuries in the 11 Injury Prevention Program and one-half fewer severe injuries, defined as those that kept a player out for over 28 days.

Females have about as many overall soccer injuries as males, but three to five times more anterior cruciate ligament tears which are serious knee injuries. The Program decreased those also.

If you have any teens playing sports you may want to take a look at the study and program. Come to think about it, old coots probably would benefit also.

What do you think?

Tags: exercise safety

This entry's content reflects the opinions and reporting of the author and not necessarily that of JHMFD. This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 9th, 2008 at 4:01 pm and is filed under Children's Health, Medical-Study News, Nutrition and Fitness. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.