Study aims to cut injury risks in GAA players

Reducing the risk of injury to young footballers and hurlers due to training overload, skeletal immaturity, and mismatched age groups is the focus of a new national programme designed to tackle the growing epidemic of sports injuries among adolescents.

Up to 800 hurlers and 800 footballers aged 13-18 will take part in the first National Adolescent Injury Prevention Programme, which will monitor players over five years pinpointing when and why lower extremity injuries occur with a view to identifying how to mitigate risk.

A study published in last month’s Australian Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport, entitled ‘Epidemiology of injury in male adolescent Gaelic games’, found that a third of all adolescent players developed an injury in one year, and more than a quarter of injured participants sustained a subsequent injury throughout the year.