It has occurred to our favourite participant, they limped off the pitch in agony and spent some months on the sidelines. Hamstring accidents have all the time been a nasty threat of soccer however they appear to occur much more ceaselessly in recent times with the fashionable stunning sport changing into extra demanding, and the analysis concurs as a latest examine has discovered that the variety of hamstring accidents suffered by male skilled footballers has doubled in Europe during the last 21 years.
The analysis at Linkoping University in Sweden, funded by the European governing physique UEFA and revealed within the British Journal of Sports Medicine, discovered that the variety of matches skilled gamers miss with hamstring issues has additionally doubled.
Nearly 20% of hamstring accidents are recurrences; of which over two-thirds happen inside two months of a participant returning to play.
The examine collected knowledge from medical groups who reported 2,636 hamstring accidents over 21 seasons. It discovered that the chance was 10 instances larger in video games than in coaching.
Of the entire of accidents, and 1,714 – or 66% – occurred in 343,738 hours of match play hours and 922 – 34% – in 1.79 million hours of coaching.
Hamstring accidents precipitated a mean layoff of 13 days.
Over the 21 years, increasingly of the accidents suffered by gamers have been to the hamstring. In the primary yr, they have been 12% of all accidents however rose to 24% by the final.
Over the identical interval, days misplaced to hamstring accidents doubled from 10% to twenty%.
A 25-player squad can count on about eight hamstring accidents each season.
The researchers stated they didn’t got down to discover causes however steered {that a} extra bodily play, demanding ways and a crowded fixtures calendar could also be guilty.
“The intensity of elite men’s football has increased,” the researchers advised the British Journal of Sports Medicine.
“Professional players now undertake more high-intensity activities per match than they did previously and they also run faster than their predecessors.”
“Professional players now work year round apart from a 4 to 6-week break between seasons. Even during the traditional break between seasons, players are often required to undertake pre-season tours which require intercontinental travel,” the researchers added.