CONTEXT Injuries involving the lumbar spine and lower extremities in athletes are among the most disabling. Lack of trunk and hip strength may predispose athletes to such injuries. OBJECTIVE To measure trunk endurance and hip strength in a population of National Collegiate Athletic Association Division III athletes. DESIGN Cross-sectional design of 5 collegiate athletic teams. SETTING An ...

With the explosion of the number of youth participating in sports activities has come an epidemic of injuries. Myriad factors make their prevention a great challenge for society. This article presents an overview of statistics, factors contributing to sports injuries, a review of significant prevention efforts, barriers to prevention, and recommendations for the future.

The Rugby Injury and Performance Project (RIPP) is a prospective cohort study by a multidisciplinary research group. Rugby injuries constitute an important area for research because rugby union is New Zealand's national sport and because of the considerable cost of all sports injury acknowledged by the Accident Rehabilitation and Compensation Insurance Corporation (ACC). The initial phase of da...

The training regimens of modern-day athletes have evolved from the sole emphasis on a single fitness component (e.g., endurance athlete or resistance/strength athlete) to an integrative, multimode approach encompassing all four of the major fitness components: resistance (R), interval sprints (I), stretching (S), and endurance (E) training. Athletes rarely, if ever, focus their training on only...

Implications for sports performance and athletic injury occurrence have been forcefully insinuated by proponents of a biorhythm theory based on date of birth. The theory postulates that variations in human abilities are governed by three consistently recurring cycles of 23, 28 and 33 day lengths. This study assessed the validity of biorhythms by analysing best performances in 610 top ranked Eur...

Aspects of different approaches to study design in the epidemiology of sports injuries are presented, identifying 4 major types: (i) the clinical case series; (ii) the community-based survey; (iii) studies on specific sports or diagnoses without exposure data; and (iv) studies on specific sports or diagnoses with exposure data. The advantages and disadvantages of these concepts are discussed. I...