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What does ‘preventive training’ prevent in competitive sport?
  1. Per Bo Mahler1,2,
  2. Boris Gojanovic2,
  3. François Fourchet2,
  4. Finn Mahler2
  1. 1Service de santé de l'enfance et de la jeunesse, Swiss Olympic Partner School, Genève, Switzerland
  2. 2Hôpital de la Tour, Sports Medicine, Swiss Olympic Medical Center, Meyrin, Switzerland
  1. Correspondence to Dr Per Bo Mahler, Service de santé de l'enfance et de la jeunesse, Swiss Olympic Partner School, 11 Glacis de Rive, CH-1207 Genève (GE), Switzerland; per.mahler{at}etat.ge.ch

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We have just returned from Barcelona's ECOSEP and MuscleTech Network conference, where we had the opportunity to listen to some of the world's foremost experts on tendon and muscle injury, and to sit in the Camp Nou stadium, where some of the world's best footballers play.

It is to be expected, considering the value of the players and the budget of this club, that injury prevention is a priority and that the very best of evidence is implemented.

One of the presentations was on FC Barcelona's ‘preventive training’, where we heard an excellent talk on a series of practices encompassing strengthening, mobility drills, agility and proprioception in the hope of preventing injuries.

Does ‘preventive training’ prevent injuries?

It is intriguing that this part of the football practice is called ‘preventive training’, considering that no decrease in the number of injuries over time could be presented for FC Barcelona. This concurs with what is observed in most other elite clubs, where …

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Footnotes

  • Competing interests None declared.

  • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.