ORIGINAL ARTICLE  SPORT INJURIES AND REHABILITATION 

The Journal of Sports Medicine and Physical Fitness 2021 December;61(12):1636-43

DOI: 10.23736/S0022-4707.21.11925-5

Copyright © 2021 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

lingua: Inglese

Causes and differentiation of injuries depending on the positions taken on the pitch among American Football players in Poland

Aleksandra SPAŁEK ¹, Bartosz TRYBULEC ¹, Ewa WODKA-NATKANIEC ¹ ✉, Marta BARŁOWSKA-TRYBULEC ²

¹ Medical College, Department of Physiotherapy, Faculty of Health Sciences, Jagiellonian University, Cracow, Poland; ² Medical College, Department of Medical Physiology, Faculty of Health Sciences, Jagiellonian University, Cracow, Poland

BACKGROUND: American Football (AF) players are assigned to positions by specific abilities and responsible for different tasks on the field; this may result into wide differentiation in experienced injuries. The aim of this study was to analyze the causes of injuries and their differentiation depending on the position on the pitch.
METHODS: Original questionnaire was used to investigate 150 Polish amateur AF players who had suffered from 189 injuries. The questionnaire detailed the following positions: offensive line (OL), defensive line (DL), quarterback (QB), running back (RB), wide receiver (WR), linebacker (LB), defensive backs (DB). The results were statistically analyzed by SofaStas v. 1.4.5 (SOFA Statistics, San Jose, CA, USA) and then had been interpreted.
RESULTS: Over 90% of all investigated AF players had self-reported injury history with the injury rate 1.27 injury per player. No statistically significant relationship was stated between position on the pitch and the occurrence rate, type and location of the injury. Significant relationship (P=0.030) was stated between the injury circumstances and position on the pitch - QB were mostly injured in collision with opponent, OL in direct sport fight while WR and RB due to a fall.
CONCLUSIONS: Occurrence and type of injuries in AF players does not depend on position on the pitch in AF. Relationship between the injury location or injury circumstances and position on the pitch requires further studies. The most common location of injury is the knee joint, and the most common type of injury is sprain while the most common causes of injury were collision with opponent and direct sport fight.

KEY WORDS: Football; Athletes; Wounds and injuries; Sports