Predictors of Muscle Injury Risk in Non-professional Football Players

Not yet recruiting

Brief Summary: Background. Football accounts for 30% of all sports injuries. Muscle injuries in football are the most common non-traumatic and non-contact injuries. A comprehensive approach to injury prevention must consider the design of the footwear and the environmental conditions in which the match is played.

Objective. To assess the risk of injury as a function of footwear and field of play in non-professional football players and to identify the best predictive model of muscle injury in these athletes.

Method. Ambispective cohort study. Ninety-seven players will be recruited. The primary variable will be the number of lower limb muscle injuries in the last 3 seasons. Secondary and modifying variables will be: age, body mass index, boot type, pitch turf, training load and field position. Potential confounding variables will be motivation for choice of footwear, date of muscle injuries, time playing in the category and presence in the starting team. The analysis will calculate the risk of adverse effects in these patients and assess the influence of confounders and trend analysis on the primary variable, stratified by potential confounders.

Expected outcomes. To calculate the risk of muscle injury as a function of anthropometric variables, and footwear and turf type. To identify the predictive model of muscle injuries in football players.

Recruitment & Eligibility

Inclusion Criteria

Federated, non-professional football players.
Competing in category 3 RFEF (group 2).
Who compete in the territorial delimitation of the Principality of Asturias.
Subjects who have not undergone previous musculoskeletal surgery in the seasons under study.
Who were federated at least one year before the study period.

Exclusion Criteria

Players who have not participated in competition, during the seasons under study, for a period of more than 6 months due to a musculoskeletal injury.

Arm && Interventions

Group	Intervention	Description
Observational group	Observation	Data collection will take place between May and June 2024. This will be done through a self-questionnaire format with closed questions where no data will be collected that allow the identification of the subject (name, surname, or national identity document). The coding of the data collected and its analysis will be carried out under the supervision of the principal investigator, in accordance with current data protection regulations, scrupulously complying with the anonymous collection of clinical data, and without collecting any data that could allow the identification of the patients whose data are collected.

Primary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Asses the number of lower limb muscle injuries in the last 3 competition seasons	Screening visit	The primary variable, the number of lower limb muscle injuries in the last 3 seasons, will be assessed as a quantitative variable.

Secondary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Assess the type of muscle injury in the last 3 competition seasons	Screening visit	The secondary variable, type of muscle injury (fibrillar / musculotendinous / strain), will be assessed as an ordinal qualitative variable.
Assess the body mass index	Screening visit	The secondary variable, body mass index (in kg/m2), will be assessed as a quantitative variable.
Assess the type of training and competition boot in the last 3 competition seasons	Screening visit	The secondary variable, type of training and competition boot (rubber cleat/metal cleat), will be assessed as a nominal qualitative variable.
Assess the type of training and competition pitch in the last 3 competition seasons	Screening visit	The secondary variable, type of training and competition pitch (sand pitch / artificial turf pitch / natural grass pitch), will be assessed as a nominal qualitative variable.
Assess the age	Screening visit	The secondary variable, age (in years completed), will be assessed as a quantitative variable.
Assess the position on the field in the last 3 competition seasons	Screening visit	The secondary variable, position on the field (goalkeeper / defender / midfielder / striker), will be assessed as an ordinal qualitative variable.
Assess the weekly training load in the last 3 competition seasons	Screening visit	The secondary variable, weekly training load (hours/week), will be assessed as a quantitative variable.