Information about a piece of news titled Coaches are our key persons in injury prevention work
Coaches are our key persons in injury prevention work
Intoduction
What is the optimal delivery strategy of successful injury prevention programs to coaches and players? An international project group recently published their results in British Journal of Sports Medicine: Proper education of coaches during an extensive pre-season workshop is the clue.
The idea behind this cluster-randomized Canadian study was to evaluate different delivery strategies of an effective injury prevention program (FIFA 11+) on adherence and injury risk among female youth football teams.
During the 4-month 2011 football season, coaches and 13-18-year old players from 31 teams were introduced to the 11+ through either an unsupervised website or a coach-focused workshop with and without additional on-field supervisions by a physiotherapist. Team and player adherence to the 11+, playing exposure, and injuries were recorded.
No better adherence among coaches with additional staff on-field
Following a coach-workshop, coach-led delivery of the 11+ was equally successful with or without additional field involvement of a physiotherapist: 86% adherence versus 81% (versus 74% adherence for coaches in the “website-group”). The 3 tested delivery strategies did not affect teams´ injury risk differently.
Proper coach education important
The authors concluded that coach education should continue to play an important role in the way a new neuromuscular injury prevention exercise program is delivered to football teams and players, given the paucity of resources for injury prevention training and medical follow-up in youth community football.
Important to identify coaches´ barriers and motivators
More evidence is needed to identify potential barriers and motivators for coaches in the use of an injury prevention program, and to measure change of behavior over time.
This knowledge would facilitate a better understanding of coach willingness to change current practices and behavior and adopt such an intervention, such as the 11+.
Improved performance: As part of this project, the research team measured player performance before and after the season.
International project group
This study was conducted in Canada in the 2011 and led by Kathrin Steffen from the OSTRC together with Carolyn Emery, Winne Meeuwisse, Maria Romiti, Jane Kang, Carly McKay (all University of Calgary, Canada), Mario Bizzini, Jiri Dvorak (F-MARC, Switzerland), Grethe Myklebust (Norway) and Caroline Finch (Australia).