Elite professional soccer players’ experience of injury prevention

Abstract

Introduction: Injuries are common in professional soccer and might interfere with the ability of the team and the individual player to perform. Several studies have shown the benefits of exercise as a means to prevent injuries in soccer, but research is needed to substantiate, how injury prevention strategies are best implemented. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to describe and interpret soccer players’ experience of injury prevention. Method: A hermeneutic phenomenological approach was used as described by van Manen. Respondents: Eight professional Danish soccer players were interviewed with open-ended interviews. Results: The players’ lived experience of injury prevention across all the interviews were shown as the interaction between three overreaching themes: (1) being a part of a performance environment, (2) the need for an individual approach and (3) strong personal ambitions. Interaction between the three themes empowered the players to engage in injury prevention. Conclusion: Professional soccer players’ experience of injury prevention can be interpreted within the four components of the empowerment model: (1) impact, (2) competence, (3) meaningfulness and (4) choice. The presence of the four components empowered the players to engage in injury prevention in the soccer club.

Keywords:

• injury prevention
• soccer
• compliance
• hermeneutic phenomenology
• empowerment
• behaviour

Public Interest Statement

Injuries are a major problem in professional male soccer. Injuries have massive negative consequences for the performance of the team and the player, as well as the health of the player. Even though many injuries can be prevented through exercises, it is difficult for players and clubs to perform the exercises adequately and frequent enough to get the desired effect. This is the first study to explore the experience of the players involved in the exercises. The study outlines that players needed to experience being empowered to make them more committed to the tasks related to injury prevention. When players feel empowered, they seem to get a deeper understanding of the purpose and execution of the interventions rather than just following instructions.

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interest.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jakob Bredahl Kristiansen

Jakob Bredahl Kristiansen is a physiotherapist with a Master Degree in Medical Science from Lund University. He works as an academy physiotherapist in Brøndby IF in Copenhagen, Denmark. Parallel to the clinical work with elite soccer players, he has worked on the current study in order to achieve in-depth knowledge of injury prevention, of research as well as clinical purposes.

Ingalill Larsson

Ingalill Larsson is a physiotherapist, PhD and Senior Lecture at the Faculty of Medicine at Lund University. She teaches, tutors, instructs and exams students with a particular interest in child neurology, pedagogic, learning and qualitative research methods.