THE ROLE OF ACCELERATION RELATED VARIABLES FOR HAMSTRING MUSCLE (RE-) INJURY PREVENTION IN ELITE ASSOCIATION FOOTBALL
type: CreativeWork
description: Hamstring muscle injuries constitute a major concern in football and a major challenge for physiotherapists working in this sport, being an injury with long absence from playing and training. Although clinical strategies to rehabilitate these injuries and clinical injury risk assessments have been explored over the years, a broader comprehension of how variables regarding running performance may in some form relate to hamstring injury risk has been missing for clinical professionals. Together with this, its incidence has been increasing despite many preventive efforts, which reveals a necessity for developing risk assessment methods to better inform preventive strategies. The key involvement of hamstring muscles during accelerations and decelerations during football running actions justifies research into acceleration related observations. Therefore, the aims of the current programme of research were to develop new laboratorial and load monitoring strategies related to acceleration actions, by exploring biomechanical factors from a physiotherapist perspective. Additionally, implementing assessments and exposing some key limitations of these assessments in professional clubs is also described throughout the experimental studies of this thesis (chapters 3 and 5). For the purposes of this thesis, force development variables were analysed in chapter 3, during maximal accelerations on a non-motorised treadmill, and comparisons between professional players with and without previous injuries were performed. Results from this study revealed no differences between groups during both maximal acceleration and steady state of a maximal sprint effort. A second approach regarding risk analysis and acceleration variables considered the mechanical load based on trunk-mounted accelerometry used in outfield training, as detailed in chapter 5 of the present thesis. In this study mechanical load expressed by PlayerLoadTM, an accelerometer-derived variable aimed to express the rate of c…
abstract: Hamstring muscle injuries constitute a major concern in football and a major challenge for physiotherapists working in this sport, being an injury with long absence from playing and training. Although clinical strategies to rehabilitate these injuries and clinical injury risk assessments have been explored over the years, a broader comprehension of how variables regarding running performance may in some form relate to hamstring injury risk has been missing for clinical professionals. Together with this, its incidence has been increasing despite many preventive efforts, which reveals a necessity for developing risk assessment methods to better inform preventive strategies. The key involvement of hamstring muscles during accelerations and decelerations during football running actions justifies research into acceleration related observations. Therefore, the aims of the current programme of research were to develop new laboratorial and load monitoring strategies related to acceleration actions, by exploring biomechanical factors from a physiotherapist perspective. Additionally, implementing assessments and exposing some key limitations of these assessments in professional clubs is also described throughout the experimental studies of this thesis (chapters 3 and 5). For the purposes of this thesis, force development variables were analysed in chapter 3, during maximal accelerations on a non-motorised treadmill, and comparisons between professional players with and without previous injuries were performed. Results from this study revealed no differences between groups during both maximal acceleration and steady state of a maximal sprint effort. A second approach regarding risk analysis and acceleration variables considered the mechanical load based on trunk-mounted accelerometry used in outfield training, as detailed in chapter 5 of the present thesis. In this study mechanical load expressed by PlayerLoadTM, an accelerometer-derived variable aimed to express the rate of c…
author: Barreira, PA
keywords: RC1200 Sports Medicine
date published: 2017-03
date modified: 2026-07-24T06:30:11Z
provider: Liverpool Jon Moores University
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: Liverpool John Moores University

PropertyValue
property ID: DOI
value: 10.24377/LJMU.t.00005761