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Published on: May 26, 2020
Injury prevention programs that include balance training exercises reduce ankle injury rates among soccer players: a
Wesam Saleh A Al Attar1, Ehdaa H Khaledi2, Jumana M Bakhsh3
1Department of Physical Therapy, Faculty of Applied Medical Science, Umm Al Qura University, Makkah, Saudi Arabia; Discipline of Exercise and Sport Science, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, The University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia; Department of Sport, Exercise and Health, Faculty of Medicine, University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland.
Question:
What is the effect of injury prevention programs that include balance training exercises on the incidence of ankle injuries among soccer players?
Design:
Systematic review of randomised trials with meta-analysis.
Participants:
Soccer players of any age, sex or competition level.
Interventions:
The experimental intervention was an injury prevention program that included balance training exercises. The control intervention was the soccer team's usual warm-up program.
Outcome Measures:
Exposure-based ankle injury rates.
Results:
Nine articles met the inclusion criteria. The pooled results of injury prevention programs that included balance training exercises among 4,959 soccer players showed a 36% reduction in ankle injury per 1,000 hours of exposure compared to the control group with an injury risk ratio (IRR) of 0.64 (95% CI 0.54 to 0.77). The pooled results of the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) injury prevention programs caused a 37% reduction in ankle injury (IRR 0.63, 95% CI 0.48 to 0.84) and balance-training exercises alone cause a 42% reduction in ankle injury (IRR 0.58, 95% CI 0.41 to 0.84).
Conclusions:
This meta-analysis demonstrates that balance exercises alone or as part of an injury prevention program decrease the risk of ankle injuries. PROSPERO CRD42017054450.
