Injury Rate in TackleBar Football

Abstract

Background: As football comes under greater scrutiny because of concussions and other injuries, many people are searching for safer alternatives, especially for youth athletes. The injury rate in TackleBar football, one such alternative, is not currently known. Purpose: To describe TackleBar football and calculate its injury rate over a single season to compare it with both traditional tackle and flag football. Study Design: Descriptive epidemiology study. Methods: TackleBar football was described, and injuries of male athletes (age range, 9-14 years) participating in TackleBar football were tracked over the course of a season (August 5 through October 27, 2018) and compared with published injury rates for traditional tackle and flag football. Results: The overall injury rate of TackleBar football was found to be 0.31 per 1000 athlete-exposures (AEs), which is lower than youth tackle (2.25-2.60/1000 AEs) and flag (5.77/1000 AEs) football. Conclusion: TackleBar football may represent a reasonable alternative to tackle and flag football with regard to injuries.

The Effectiveness of Regulations and Behavioral Interventions on Head Impacts and Concussions in Youth, High-School, and Collegiate Football: A Systematized Review

“…Of the 20 included studies, 8 studies evaluated interventions in high-school football, 7,9,13,24,30,39,48,55 5 studies evaluated interventions in collegiate football, 10,50,51,54,60 6 studies evaluated interventions in youth football, [25][26][27]29,38,58 and 1 study evaluated interventions in both, high-school and collegiate football. 57 Summaries of included articles for youth, highschool, and collegiate, football are presented separately in Tables 1, 2, and 3 respectively.…”

“…Seven studies evaluated the effectiveness of rule changes, 7,25,27,39,50,51,60 two studies evaluated the effectiveness of training programs, 10,57 9 studies evaluated the effectiveness of education/instruction/coaching tactical changes, 9,13,24,26,27,30,48,54,55 and 3 studies evaluated the effectiveness of alternatives to tackle football. 29,38,58 Of the 7 studies that evaluated the effectiveness of rule changes, 5 articles assessed rule changes targeting practice conditions, 7,27,39,50,51 1 article evaluated rule changes targeting game conditions, 60 and 1 article analyzed the difference between rules for player enrollments. 25 Two alternatives to tackle football were evaluated in studies that met inclusion criteria.…”

“…Found the concussion rate to be lower in the AW standard compared to the AO(RR, 0.6 95% CI 0.3- 58 In flag football, instead of tackling, players remove a flag from the opponents waistline. One study evaluated the effectiveness of TackleBar football, 58 and 2 studies evaluated the effectiveness of flag football.…”

“…Found the concussion rate to be lower in the AW standard compared to the AO(RR, 0.6 95% CI 0.3- 58 In flag football, instead of tackling, players remove a flag from the opponents waistline. One study evaluated the effectiveness of TackleBar football, 58 and 2 studies evaluated the effectiveness of flag football. 29,38 Of the 9 studies that evaluated the effectiveness of education/instruction/coaching tactical changes, 4 studies evaluated USA football's Heads Up Football (HUF) program, 24,26,27,48 2 studies evaluated a Helmet-less Tackling Training (HUTT) Program, 54,55 2 studies evaluated different tackling behavioral interventions, 9,13 and 1 study evaluated the difference between offensive coaching tactics.…”

“…The number of participants in respective groups does not add up to the total number because some studies did not specify groups. Toninato et al 58 did not mention number of participants in the comparison group and Kerr et al 25 did not specify the number of participants in either group. Player experience, prior years played, was not mentioned in any of the included studies.…”