Hamstring injury prevention in Belgian and English elite football teams.

Hamstring injury is the most common injury in European professional football. The purpose of this study was to provide insight into the content of hamstring injury prevention programmes in English and Belgian elite football teams. Fifteen premier league teams (10 from Belgium and 5 from England) completed a questionnaire on hamstring injury prevention. Most football teams (93%) screened for hamstring injury risk factors. Less than 60% screened for risk factors including gluteus muscle strength, neural tension and body posture during running. While 80% of the teams had a hamstring injury prevention programme during preseason and official season ; only 47% had a prevention programme during mid-season break. Hamstring muscle strength exercises were mainly performed before (77%) instead of after warming-up. In conclusion, while most investigated football teams perform hamstring injury prevention, the content and implementation of the prevention programmes is suboptimal in many Belgian and English elite football teams.

Minimal intensity physical activity (standing and walking) of longer duration improves insulin action and plasma lipids more than shorter periods of moderate to vigorous exercise (cycling) in sedentary subjects when energy expenditure is comparable.

BACKGROUND: Epidemiological studies suggest that excessive sitting time is associated with increased health risk, independent of the performance of exercise. We hypothesized that a daily bout of exercise cannot compensate the negative effects of inactivity during the rest of the day on insulin sensitivity and plasma lipids. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Eighteen healthy subjects, age 21±2 year, BMI 22.6±2.6 kgm(-2) followed randomly three physical activity regimes for four days. Participants were instructed to sit 14 hr/day (sitting regime); to sit 13 hr/day and to substitute 1 hr of sitting with vigorous exercise 1 hr (exercise regime); to substitute 6 hrs sitting with 4 hr walking and 2 hr standing (minimal intensity physical activity (PA) regime). The sitting and exercise regime had comparable numbers of sitting hours; compared to the exercise regime, the minimal intensity PA regime had a higher estimated daily energy expenditure (238kcal/day) [corrected]. PA was assessed continuously by an activity monitor (ActivPAL) and a diary. Measurements of insulin sensitivity (oral glucose tolerance test, OGTT) and plasma lipids were performed in the fasting state, the morning after the 4 days of each regime. In the sitting regime, daily energy expenditure was about 500 kcal lower than in both other regimes. Area under the curve for insulin during OGTT was significantly lower after the minimal intensity PA regime compared to both sitting and exercise regimes 6727.3±4329.4 vs 7752.0±3014.4 and 8320.4±5383.7 mU•min/ml, respectively. Triglycerides, non-HDL cholesterol and apolipoprotein B plasma levels improved significantly in the minimal intensity PA regime compared to sitting and showed non-significant trends for improvement compared to exercise. CONCLUSIONS: One hour of daily physical exercise cannot compensate the negative effects of inactivity on insulin level and plasma lipids if the rest of the day is spent sitting. Reducing inactivity by increasing the time spent walking/standing is more effective than one hour of physical exercise, when energy expenditure is kept constant.