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FIGC TERRITORIAL CENTERS: A PILOT STUDY TO DETERMINE THE LOWER LIMB STRENGTH ASYMMETRY IN YOUNG SOCCER PLAYERS
  1. Italo Sannicandro1,
  2. Vito Tisci2,
  3. Antonio Quarto3,
  4. Giacomo Cofano4,
  5. Anna Rosa Rosa1
  1. 1Degree Course in Motor and Sport Science, Foggia, Italy
  2. 2Youth and School Area National President, FIGC, Roma, Italy
  3. 3Youth and School Area, Apulia F.I.G.C. Committee, Bari, Italy
  4. 4Strenght & Conditioning, Foggia, Italy

    Abstract

    Background Functional asymmetry (FA) is often analyzed to reduce the young soccer players injury risk. Strength asymmetry values greater than or equal to 15% indicate a potential injury risk (Noyes et al., 1991).

    Objective Describe lower limb FA values.

    Design Descriptive study.

    Setting Youth soccer.

    Participants 112 young soccer players (n=47 under 13 male, 12.4±0.6 yrs, 44.2±7.8 kg, 152.8±11.1 cm, BMI:17.7±0.8; n=26 under 14 male, 13.9±0.4 yrs, 56.4±8.2 kg, 168.8±8.6 cm, BMI:18.6±0.2; n=25 Under 15 female, 13.6±1.9 yrs, 49.8±6.4 kg, 159.3±6.5 cm, BMI:18.2±1.2). Inclusion criteria: no lower limb injury in the last 1 yr; soccer training age at least 3 yrs (n=15 were excluded).

    Interventions (or Assessment of Risk Factors) Single leg jumps, performed as Hop Test (HT), Side Hop (SH) and Triple Hop(TH) tests were used a validated marker of lower limb FA.

    Main Outcome Measurements Young soccer players were assessed by HT, SH, TH to evaluate strength. FA was calculated between the two limbs as follows: (jump dominant limb–jump non-dominant limb)/jump dominant-limb*100 (Yamamoto, 1993)

    Results FA values are shown in the table below. *indicates p<0.05.

    Table 1

    Conclusions Monitoring of functional strength asymmetry values in the young player may help staff in reducing injury risk in youth soccer. The SH reveals s asymmetry values greater than the other two tests. The large standard deviations observed suggest that individualized preventive strategies should be adopted.

    • Injury

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