High Performance Sports

Dr. Bradley of HPS attends first ever World Congress on Injury Prevention in Norway

I recently joined my colleagues from around the world in Oslo, Norway for the first World Congress on Injury Prevention. The goal of this first-ever event was to “…develop new concepts to enhance the safety in sports through a beneficial cooperation between scientists and practitioners.” (Gerhard Heiberg, Honorary President) The Congress consisted of research presentations from scientists from around the world, workshops, scientific exhibitions, and informal interactions with colleagues promoting this new approach to sports medicine. Colleagues from the USA, Europe, Asia Canada, Australia and New Zealand attended the Congress. The medical director of FIFA attended this Congress as well.

Presentations specific to “football” (soccer) included a symposium of presentations on soccer-specific injuries, their risk factors, their injury mechanisms, footwear design for soccer, injury prevention strategies, a FIFA - sponsored poster exhibition on their new injury prevention scheme “The F-MARC 11” (more to come on that program) and two other symposiums on hamstring injuries and groin injuries with many of the presentations specific to soccer.

It was clear from this first World Congress that injury prevention is the new focus of sports medicine. (Previously, the focus has been on how to treat the injured athlete and get them back into sports quicker). However the sports medicine world has a lot to learn about why injuries occur and then what programs prevent those injuries.

Clearly the success story so far is the reduction of ACL knee ligament injuries in female soccer athletes with an injury prevention program taught and monitored by educated personnel and then continued by the athlete through the season. ACL knee ligament prevention programs for female soccer players have reduced the incidence of ACL injuries tremendously.

Hamstring and groin injuries are now thought to occur more from an imbalance of strength rather than just inflexibility. APPROPRIATE PRESEASON strength training programs have significantly impacted the rate of hamstring and groin injuries in soccer.

Head injuries continue to be a problem in sports in that we do not understand what is happening when they occur and we just really do not have a consensus on how to treat them. There is a growing consensus that we should not be using a grading system (because it is not helpful) and that return to sport should be based both on the resolution of symptoms (no headache, good concentration, good focus of attention) AND some sort of neuropsychological testing. New easier-to-administer testing programs are now becoming available. Review of studies related to heading the ball do not seem to indicate that heading leads to brain dysfunction.

The opportunity for me to meet with scientists and colleagues from around the world enable the programming at High Performance Sports to be “on the cutting edge of athlete training”. High Performance Sports programs promote “enhanced performance through injury prevention.” The closing keynote speaker Willem Meeuwisse indicated that Congress participants should now implement what we had discussed and heard at the Congress. High Performance Sports has been implementing these principles for the last 3 years.

This summer, High Performance Sports programs will incorporate some of the newer findings and presentations from this inaugural world meeting. This will make the Summer 2005 very exciting for our athletes and our staff! We look forward to working with our athletes of all ages and abilities this summer.

Dr. Mahlon Bradley is the President of High Performance Sports, the official strength and conditioning partner of MYSA.