Safety

Balanced neck strength may reduce the acceleration of the head during the act of heading a soccer ball, thus reducing the risk of brain injury from such low grade hits, says a new study (1). The study adds to a growing body of evidence that strengthening neck muscles may be a way to reduce head injury risk from concussion and repetitive sub-concussive trauma.

There is good news and bad news on the youth sports injury front. The good news is that sports and recreation musculoskeletal injuries declined 12.4 percent in the U.S. over the past 10 years for children ages 5 to 14 years. The bad news: injuries in football and soccer went up, says a new study.

A survey of high school athletic directors, coaches, and certified athletic trainers in Michigan finds that, while concussion education is very common in football, less than half of girls' soccer players received such education.

Girls don't appear to be worse off after sports-related concussion than boys, either in terms of concussion symptoms or on neurocognitive tests measuring reaction time and visual memory, a new study finds.

Pre- or early adolescence appears to be the best time to start a neuromuscular training program in order to reduce the number of injuries female athletes suffer to their anterior cruciate ligaments, says a new study.

From ball-handling skills to landing softly on one leg as a way of reducing the risk of an ACL tear, balance training is something every young soccer player should include in their workout programs.

While it is possible that intentional heading in soccer represents a form of repetitive subconcussive mild brain injury which, over time,  could be a cause of chronic traumatic encephalpathy (CTE), the possible cause-and-effect relationship remains theoretical, says a 2012 study.

As USA Women's World Cup soccer team prepares to meet Japan in the gold medal game, athletic trainer Ralph Reiff, ATC, MEd, director of St. Vincent Sports Performance in Indianapolis and former manager of athlete care for the 1996 Olympic Games, 
offers some important tips for soccer parents to help their kids safe and injury-free.

Soccer has a higher injury rate than many contact/collision sports such as field hockey, rugby, basketball, and football, with players younger than age 15 at higher relative injury risk compared with older players, concludes a clinical report in the journal Pediatrics.

 

.