Late swing running mechanics influence hamstring injury susceptibility in elite rugby athletes: A prospective exploratory analysis

Sprinting Biomechanics and Hamstring Injuries: Is There a Link? A Literature Review

“…Data were analysed for the swing phase only and players were monitored over the entire competition season following baseline testing. Using functional component analysis to identify patterns of variability in the kinematic and kinetic data, subsequently injured players (n = 3) were found to display increased thoracic lateral flexion towards the ipsilateral side as well as a greater peak hip extension moment and increased peak knee joint power absorption during late swing [53]. However, no difference between groups was found for the degree of anterior pelvic tilt during sprinting.…”

“…To address this issue, prospective studies investigating the association between sprinting biomechanics and future HSIs need to be considered. To our knowledge, only five such studies have been published to date (Table 5) [47,48,[51][52][53]. ♂: male, Hx: participants suffering HSI, H0: participants who did not suffer HSI, MOCAP: motion capture, θ: angle, ω: Angular velocity, M: moment, P: power, LH: lateral hamstring, MH: medial hamstring and GM: Gluteus Maximus One prospective study focused on trunk and hip muscle sEMG activity during overground sprinting.…”

“…The other four prospective studies focused on kinematic and/or kinetic variables during over-ground sprinting [47,48,51,53]. Haugen et al [48] examined 14 different kinematic variables relating to interlimb asymmetry during sprinting, but none were significantly different between athletes who suffered a HSI within a 12 month follow-up period (n = 12) and those who did not (n = 9).…”

“…Compared to matched controls, the subsequently injured players displayed significantly greater anterior pelvic tilt during early swing and significantly greater thoracic lateral flexion towards the ipsilateral side during late swing. Kenneally-Dabrowski and colleagues [53] recorded trunk kinematics as well as lower-limb kinematics and kinetics during sprinting for 10 professional Rugby Union players. Participants maximally accelerated over 50 m on an indoor track and data were captured between 30 and 50 m from the starting location.…”

“…For example, gluteus maximus normalised sEMG activity during late swing and early stance for players who did not experience a HSI had an average amplitude between 200% and 300%, which would indicate that the normalisation task for gluteus maximus sEMG activity in this study did not elicit true maximal voluntary contractions. Second, Kenneally-Dabrowski et al [53] used inverse dynamics to compute joint moments and powers, but data were expressed in absolute units, therefore it is possible that the reported differences in joint kinetics may be attributable to variability in anthropometric properties between subjects. Kenneally-Dabrowski et al [53] also did not quantify sprinting biomechanics during stance, which is a phase in the stride cycle when the hamstrings are known to be highly activated and generating force [32,68] and thought by some to be vulnerable to injury [16,69].…”