No abstract

Although injury surveillance in athletics is routinely conducted, discipline-specific Achilles and patellar tendinopathy prevalence remains unknown. The purpose of this study was to explore discipline-specific tendinopathy prevalence and identify whether injury-specific risk factors differed in athletes. Elite athletes were recruited and provided information on their sport training including Achilles and patellar tendon pain history. In order to ascertain whether between-discipline differences existed, data were categorized into discipline groups. Middle-distance athletes reported the highest prevalence of Achilles tendinopathy and the combined athletes reported the highest patellar tendinopathy prevalence. Greater calf stiffness was reported in athletes who experienced Achilles tendinopathy compared to those who did not. A substantial portion of athletes believed their performance decreased as a result of their tendon pain. In order to develop discipline-specific evidence-based injury prevention programmes, further discipline-specific research is required to quantify the mechanism for Achilles and patellar tendinopathy development in elite athletics.

As frequent application of high patellar tendon loading has previously been identified as a causative factor for developing patellar tendinopathy, interventions designed to decrease ankle dorsiflexion velocity and trunk flexion velocity at landing, particularly in male players with strong quadriceps muscles, may be effective in reducing patellar tendon loading and, in turn, patellar tendinopathy prevalence in this population.

No abstract

Countermovement jumps loaded with a weighted vest are often used for the training of lower body power to improve jump performance. However, it is currently unknown how this added load affects the lower extremity kinematics and kinetics, in particular whether this results in an increased injury risk. Therefore, the purpose of this investigation was to determine how lower extremity kinematics and kinetics during landing are affected by loaded jumps as demonstrated in a volleyball block jump landing. Ten elite male volleyball players performed block jump landings in an unloaded and loaded (9.89 kg) condition. Kinematic and kinetic landing data from the three highest jumps were collected and assessed. Paired samplesttest was used to establish whether load condition had a significant effect on lower extremity kinematics and kinetics. Hip flexion was significantly greater in the unloaded condition compared with the loaded condition (p= .004). There was no significant difference in any other kinematic or kinetic variables measures between the unloaded and loaded conditions. These results suggest that landing from loaded volleyball block jumps does not increase injury risk compared with unloaded jumps in elite male volleyball players.