Match high-speed running distances are often suppressed after return from hamstring strain injury in professional footballers

Key Points

1. This study appears to highlight the stark difference between returning an injured athlete to play and returning to performance.

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BACKGROUND & OBJECTIVE

Hamstring injuries exceed all other lower limb muscle injuries in soccer (1), and therefore gain a lot of attention in the literature. Within this well-researched area there is a general consensus that the “success” of the rehabilitation process is judged upon the time lost to injury, or the re-injury rate after return.

This study looked to document the pre and post-injury high speed running volumes performed in matches for players who had suffered hamstring injuries. Through analyzing these metrics, the authors hoped to understand if the burden of hamstring injury on performance is actually greater than the time-loss burden currently acknowledged within previous research.

Hamstring injuries exceed all other lower limb muscle injuries in soccer.

Hamstring injury may result in a much greater burden on an athlete’s performance than what can be quantified through monitoring time loss and re-injury rates alone.

METHODS

10 teams across a range of field-based sports were invited to contribute to this study anonymously, however only 5 of these teams consented to the study. Of these 5 teams there were 22 injuries, within 15 athletes, which met the

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