Strategies to prevent sports injuries in professional soccers: core stability and proprioception

Abstract

Objective: to assess if there is an association between a protocol of evaluation of core stability and proprioception and the number of injuries suffered by soccers during a season, as well as to verify if each one of the three tests that conform the protocol is associated or has predictive power over a different type of injury, attending to the lesional mechanism and the location of the same.

Method: 30 young professional soccer players (20.13 ± 2.53 years, 73.67 ± 7.49 kg and 178.1 ± 6.72 cm) performed a protocol of evaluation of core stability and proprioception at the end of the season composed by Single Leg Landing test, McGill isometric holding test and Y-Balance test. Non contact or overuse injuries suffered during the season was recorded.

Results: Players with previous history of injury showed worse results in the mean of the tests than injury free players, although Single Leg Landing (leg left) was the only test with significant differences (p = 0.009). Significant correlations were also found between the McGill test and ankle sprains (rho = -0.402; p = 0.031). Y-Balance Test appears to predict the probability of suffer ankle sprains in the left foot (OR = 1.45, 95% CI = 1.04 - 2.14, p = 0.032).

Conclusion: The present study has demonstrated associations between the results of different assessment tests of core stability and proprioception and the incidence of injuries sustained during a season by young professional players, especially the MacGill and Single Leg Landing tests.