Hooverball: Case study, literature review and clinical recommendations

Abstract

With the increasing popularity of extreme conditio ning programmes, athletes and patients are search ing for new, engaging, highintensity, totalbody workouts. The sport of Hooverball is increasingly used as a workout. First devised in the USA in 1929 to keep President Hoover physically fit, Hooverball has experienced increasing popularity in the past 15 years. The game is scored like tennis and played like volleyball, with players throwing and catch ing a heavy medicine ball over a volleyball net. Players use complex, multijoint, explosive move ments, featuring torsion, flexion and extension to absorb the forces involved. This paper reports a case of a Hooverball player who presented with a knee injury. The paper also reviews the origins of the sport, and its increase in popularity related to the increasing prominence of extreme condition ing programmes. A literature review, and common Hooverballrelated injuries, are presented. Clinical recommendations are set out for patient safety, injury prevention and game coverage, including a prehabilitation strategy for players prior to engag ing in this revived and growing sport.

Explosive is not a Term Defined in the International System of Units and Should not be Used to Describe Neuromuscular Performance

“…Consulting the most recent articles available on Pubmed/Medline (search performed in June 2021), the term explosive is associated with force (48), strength (38), power (29), performance (46), exercise (41), movements (5), contraction (28), and training (25). It is employed in the description of high-intensity brief tasks (e.g., jumps, kicks, sprints, strikes, throws, and weightlifting) (21,53), performance on neuromuscular evaluations (4,28,32), and in the description of strength and power training exercises as the plyometrics (36).…”