You are here

Article Text

Article menu
Download PDFPDF
Editorial
Creating awareness about exercise-based ACL prevention strategies in recreational alpine skiers
  1. Martin Burtscher1,
  2. Martin Kopp1,
  3. Gregoire P Millet2,3,
  4. Johannes Burtscher2,3,
  5. Gerhard Ruedl1
  1. 1 Department of Sport Science, University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria
  2. 2 Institute of Sport Sciences, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland
  3. 3 Department of Biomedical Sciences, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland
  1. Correspondence to Professor Martin Burtscher, Department of Sport Science, University of Innsbruck, 6020 Innsbruck, Austria; Martin.burtscher{at}uibk.ac.at

https://doi.org/10.1136/bjsports-2023-106782

Statistics from Altmetric.com

    Request Permissions

    If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.

    Alpine skiing ranks among the most popular winter sports worldwide, with an estimated 400 million skier days in a typical year. Alpine skiing is performed in greater than 2000 downhill ski areas spread across 67 countries1 and is associated with about 800 000 injuries per year (2 injuries per 1000 skier days).2

    Anterior cruciate ligament injuries in skiing are common

    The knee joint is the most frequently affected anatomical location of all ski injuries (approximately 30%) and almost all skiers suffering from knee injuries that require hospitalisation are diagnosed with a tear of the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL).3 Based on an estimated hospitalisation rate of 50%, about 120 000 recreational alpine skiers worldwide may incur a new ACL injury annually. Measures that prevent only 1% of these injuries could reduce ACL injuries by 1200 per year.

    Prevention programmes work!

    Meta-analyses have evaluated the benefits of specific ACL injury prevention programmes (including plyometric, strengthening, agility, stretching and balance exercises) applied in various sports including soccer, basketball, handball and volleyball, and suggest an injury reduction potential of between 53% and 65% after successful implementation.4 …

    View Full Text

    Footnotes

    • Twitter @GregoireMillet1, @JohBurtscher

    • Contributors Conceptualisation, MB and GR; writing—original draft preparation, MB and JB; writing—review and editing, MB, GPM, MK, JB and GR. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

    • Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

    • Competing interests None declared.

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