Sport for all – What's in this issue?

Article Outline

• References
• Copyright

There is something for everyone in this issue; we have articles involving Rugby Union, Football, Swimming, Taekwondo and Wrestling. To kick off, Tony Schneiders et al. from New Zealand present a prospective study on the incidence of injury in Rugby Union in eight premier grade teams over the course of a season. They reported a trend of increased early season injury, and maybe not surprisingly, that the tackle was the most dangerous phase of play with respect to injury. What is more interesting, however, is that they compared their data to a similar study conducted 10 years previously on a similar cohort and the injury incidence had considerably reduced.

Hypermobility remains a contentious area in terms of definition, cut off points, and both injury risk and performance enhancement in certain sports. Collinge and Simmonds from the UK present the prevalence and injury rates in a single professional football squad over a season. Whilst the authors acknowledge this was in a single squad in a single sport, they identified some interesting trends whereby hypermobile athletes took longer to return to play than their non-hypermobile counterparts.

Shoulder impingement is a major issue for swimmers. Position of the humeral head in relation to the acromion has been implicated in this pathology. McKenna et al. from Australia have previously reported on a manual palpation test to assess the position of the humeral head in a non-athletic population. In this issue they report on the same test (in two different starting positions) in elite junior swimmers, and hands on hips would appear to be a better starting position to evaluate anterior humeral head position.

Taekwondo is a Korean martial art that was used to train warriors and is now the most popular martial art according to the number of practitioners and it is also a recognised Olympic sport. In Korean, tae means ‘to strike or break with foot’, kwon means ‘to strike or break with fist’, and do means ‘way’ or ‘method’ (Taekwondo, Wikipedia). Given it is a contact sport and one of the principal weapons is the foot, foot injuries would not be entirely unexpected in this group of athletes. Lee et al. hypothesise that the forced plantarflexion and foot contact with the opponent that is required during this sport traumatises the Extensor Hallucis Longus tendon. In a case–control study, the sonographic findings on 50 athletes from the Korean national team are presented. The athletes' demonstrated greater thickness and hypoechogenicity at the insertion compared to the controls and this often occurred bilaterally. How these changes affect performance are not yet understood and would warrant continued investigation.

In the final piece of original research Forte et al. from Brazil evaluate the scapular kinematics and scapulohumeral rhythm under two loading conditions during quasi-static shoulder abduction. Loading increased the upward scapular rotation and posterior tilt and the authors discuss the clinical implications of these findings.

The management of anterior glenohumeral dislocation in young athletes remains controversial. A substantial number go on to a repeat episode and require surgery and the recurrence has been shown to be related to age. The recurrence rate has been reported to be as high as 90% in athletes under the age of 20, and this drops to 50–75% between the ages of 20 and 25 (Hovelius, 1987, Hovelius et al., 1996). Brummit et al. from the USA describe a case-study of an evidence based conservative rehabilitation programme following an anterior dislocation in a 20 year old female wrestler.

Whatever your sport, I hope you enjoy the line up in this issue.

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References 

1. Hovelius L. Anterior shoulder dislocation of the shoulder in teen-agers and young adults: five-year prognosis. Journal of Bone Joint Surgery. 1987;69A:393–399
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2. Hovelius L, Augustini BG, Fredin H, Johansson O, Norlin R, Thorling J. Primary anterior dislocation of the shoulder in young patients: a ten-year prospective study. Journal of Bone Joint Surgery. 1996;78A:1677–1684
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3. Taekwondo, Wikipedia. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taekwondo> Accessed 27.05.09.
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