Effects of footwear on comfort and injury in professional rugby league

Abstract

The aim of this study was to determine the effectiveness of a tailored footwear programme on lower-limb comfort in professional rugby league players. The study was conducted over 30 weeks and involved two professional teams (n = 59 players) from the Australian National Rugby League competition. One team was assigned to a footwear programme (intervention), while players from the control group continued usual practices of self-selected footwear. The tailored footwear programme consisting of player education, prescription of footwear, and frequent rotation of footwear resulted in a lower incidence of injury and higher comfort ratings. The intervention group had fewer lower-limb injuries (P = 0.005; Cohen d = 0.72) and higher comfort ratings (P < 0.001, Cohen d = 1.24) than the control group. Specifically, the intervention group reported a lower incidence of poor comfort events (mean = 3.8, s = 2.7) than the control group (mean = 7.9, s = 3.7). Observations also included fewer time loss events in the intervention (mean = 6.3, s = 4.8) than the control group (mean = 11.0, s = 6.3) and reduced injuries per 1000 h in the intervention (24.79/1000) than the control group (30.76/1000). These findings should help medical advisers improve footwear comfort in sportspeople and so reduce the incidence of related injuries.

Effect of Red Arch-Support Insoles on Subjective Comfort and Movement Biomechanics in Various Landing Heights

“…Footwear comfort is considered as a prerequisite to minimize adverse effects on the human musculoskeletal system (impacts and stability) and enhance performance [30,46,57]. Increased comfort perception can lead to lower incidence of injuries [31], higher actual performance [30], minimized energy expenditures, and better footwear compliance [57]. Since the comfort level of footwear is considered to be a non-invasive and reliable measure of the potential risk of sports injuries, the relationship of psycho-motor effect requires further evaluation.…”

“…The foot insoles would increase subjective comfort and reduce pain/discomfort in various locomotion [22,29]. The increase of footwear comfort was related to higher performances [30] and lower incidence of injuries [31] in both training and competition in rugby. Studying both subjective comfort and movement mechanics could be necessary to determine the efficacy of foot insoles on jump landing performance in basketball.…”

Higher shoe-surface interaction is associated with doubling of lower extremity injury risk in football codes: a systematic review and meta-analysis

“…Kinchington et al 58 used a lower-limb comfort index to guide a tailored footwear programme consisting of player education, prescription of footwear, monitoring of footwear and footwear modification. This randomised intervention reduced lower-limb injury by approximately 20% in an investigation into two elite Australian rugby league teams.…”

Can subjective comfort be used as a measure of plantar pressure in football boots?

“…The results obtained in this study support the need for a multi-faceted approach. Furthermore, despite evidence for relationships between the comfort, injury prevention and performance characteristics of a football boot (Kinchington et al, 2012(Kinchington et al, , 2011and Luo et al, 2009), it appears that these relationships may not be strong enough to allow any category to be neglected in the assessment of the boot.…”

“…Interestingly, injury protection was one of the lowest scoring desired properties (Hennig, 2014(Hennig, , 2011, despite evidence that overuse injuries and footwear comfort in football and rugby are interlinked (Kinchington et al, 2012(Kinchington et al, , 2011. Not only has discomfort been related to increased injury risk, previous studies have linked footwear discomfort to altered lower extremity loading, which consequently triggered muscular fatigue and thereby decreased performance (Kinchington et al, 2012(Kinchington et al, , 2011Luo et al, 2009). Given the importance placed on comfort by footballers (and the industry in their boot development process) combined with the suggested links with both performance and injury, it is relevant to better understand what objective factors influence comfort perception.…”