Hip and Groin Injury Prevention in Elite Athletes and Team Sport - Current Challenges and Opportunities.
Steven M Short, Cameron W MacDonald, Donald Strack
PMID 33604155WHAT IT FOUND
Hip and groin pain prevention in elite team sport is not well supported by screening alone.
Balanced, sport-specific exercise programmes with education, mobility, strength, motor control and load monitoring are proposed, not isolated risk-factor cutoffs.
Key findings
01Hip and groin injury risk factors are difficult to use for screening because standard mobility and strength cutoffs may flag almost all athletes in some sports and are highly sport-specific.
02The paper proposes balanced, sport-specific exercise, education, mobility, strength, motor control, and load monitoring as prevention strategies, but does not show they work.
03Current evidence is limited and biased toward select elite sports, so recommendations may not transfer to other athletes.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTs
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What it does not show
This is a narrative review and commentary, not a trial or systematic review, so it does not provide original evidence that any prevention strategy works. The evidence discussed is limited and biased toward select sports such as professional and semiprofessional soccer, rugby union, and ice hockey, so it may not apply to basketball, American football, or other sports. Many risk factors come from retrospective studies and small or homogenous populations, so it is unclear whether they cause injury or are merely associated with it. Mobility and strength values vary by sport, timing, anatomy, pain, and fatigue, so published cutoffs may not be useful for individual athletes.
Declared interests
The authors declare no conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read the recommended exercise and monitoring strategies as proven injury prevention. The paper is a narrative review, and it states that the evidence is limited, biased toward select sports, and not strong enough to show effectiveness.