Article word count: 3715This study examined if a particular profile of internal and external workload existed prior to injury. Forty-five professional soccer players were monitored over 2 seasons.For each non-contact injury, a profile of workload variables was determined for 4 weeks and expressed as i) an absolute, ii) week-to-week change and iii) relative to the player's season mean. Variables included exposure, session rating of perceived exertion (s-RPE) workload, total-, low-, high-, very-high speed running distance, mean speed, bodyload, monotony and strain. Acute:chronic workload ratio was also calculated and sensitivity of the relative workload was tested. Absolute and relative exposure and s-RPE workload were greater in all 3-weeks compared to the injury week (p<0.05). However, no significant differences were evident between the 3-weeks prior to injury for all variables (p>0.05). Acute: chronic workload ratio for s-RPE was significantly greater than acute:chronic workload ratio for very-high speed running (p=0.04). A workload threshold of 114% of a player's season mean reported low sensitivity and specificity for

Results suggest that westward long-haul travel between Australia and the UK exacerbates subjective jet-lag and sleep responses, along with upper respiratory symptoms, in professional rugby league players. Of note, the increase in self-reported upper respiratory symptoms is a reminder that the demands of long-haul travel may be an additional concern in jet-lag for traveling athletes. However, due to the lack of sport-specific performance measures, it is still unclear whether international travel interferes with training to the extent that subsequent competition performance is impaired.

Several sports have published consensus statements on methods and reporting of epidemiological studies concerning injuries and illnesses with football (soccer) producing one of the first guidelines. This football-specific consensus statement was published in 2006 and required an update to align with scientific developments in the field. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) recently released a sports-generic consensus statement outlining methods for recording and reporting epidemiological data on injury and illness in sport and encouraged the development of sport-specific extensions.The Fédération Internationale de Football Association Medical Scientific Advisory Board established a panel of 16 football medicine and/or science experts, two players and one coach. With a foundation in the IOC consensus statement, the panel performed literature reviews on each included subtopic and performed two rounds of voting prior to and during a 2-day consensus meeting. The panel agreed on 40 of 75 pre-meeting and 21 of 44 meeting voting statements, respectively. The methodology and definitions presented in this comprehensive football-specific extension should ensure more consistent study designs, data collection procedures and use of nomenclature in future epidemiological studies of football injuries and illnesses regardless of setting. It should facilitate comparisons across studies and pooling of data.

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