Review of Effectiveness of Hamstring Injuries Prevention Protocols in Soccer

Hamstring strain is the most common muscle injury in soccer. In addition, hamstring injuries bring about significant time loss. Although there are various prevention protocols, the incidence of injury has not changed over the years. Therefore, the present review article was conducted to review the effectiveness of hamstring injury prevention protocol in soccer codes.

In the present study, the authors reviewed articles published between 2005-2019 in the databases Science Direct, Pub Med, EBSCO, and Sport Discus using relevant keywords, resulting in locating 200 articles. In the final screening, eight articles were selected for final analysis.

Five articles used Nordic exercise, two articles used 11+, and one article used flexibility training. Flexibility exercise was not effective on injury incidence but was effective on severity among these exercises. The most effective exercise was found to be Nordic exercise.

Although Nordic exercise was effective on injury incidence, based on epidemiological studies, incidence of injury has not changed in the real-world over the years. Except for exercise type, many factors influence the effectiveness of sport prevention protocols. One of these important factors is acceptability and compliance of protocol among trainers and coaches. Another point in designing hamstring injury prevention protocols is the reductionist point of view that influences the effectiveness of the protocol

Prevention protocols should be designed specific and functional for each sport. In addition, prevention protocol designers should consider a systematic point of view to obtain more positive results.