A systematic review of prospective epidemiological research into injury and illness in Olympic combat sport.

BACKGROUND: Combat sports involve body contact through striking, kicking and/or throwing. They are anecdotally referred to as 'dangerous', yet long-term investigation into specific injury rates is yet to be explored. OBJECTIVE: To describe incidence and prevalence of injury and illness within Olympic combat sports and to investigate risk of bias of prospective injury and illness research within these sports. METHODS: We systematically searched literature published up until May 2016. We included prospective studies of injury/illness in elite combat athletes lasting more than 12 weeks. Risk of bias was assessed using a modified version of the Downs and Black checklist for methodological quality. Included studies were mapped to the Oxford Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine levels of evidence. RESULTS: Nine studies were included, and most (n=6) had moderate risk of bias. Studies provided level 1/2b evidence that the most frequently injured areas were the head/face (45.8%), wrist (12.0%) and lower back (7.8%) in boxing; the lower back (10.9%), shoulder (10.2%) and knee (9.7%) in judo; the fingers (22.8%) and thigh (9.1%) in taekwondo; and the knee (24.8%), shoulder (17.8%) and head/face (16.6%) in wrestling. Heterogeneity of injury severity classifications and inconsistencies inexposure measures prevented any direct comparisons of injury severity/incidence across combat sports. CONCLUSIONS: There is currently a lack of consensus in the collection of injury/illness data, limiting the development of prevention programmes for combat sport as a whole. However, sport-specific data that identify body areas with high injury frequency can provide direction to clinicians, enabling them to focus their attention on developing pathologies in these areas. In doing so, clinicians can enhance the practical elements of their role within the integrated combat sport performance team and assist in the regular update of surveillance records.

Rating of perceived exertion is a stable and appropriate measure of workload in judo.

OBJECTIVES: Heart rate (HR), blood lactate concentration [La] and/or rating of perceived exertion (RPE) have been utilised to monitor judo training load in technical and randori (competition training) sessions, but are yet to be investigated in mixed sessions containing both elements. Therefore the purpose of this study was to: (1) determine the stability of these variables, and (2) to assess the efficacy of RPE as a load variable for mixed judo sessions. DESIGN: Cross-sectional study. METHODS: Twenty-nine athletes attended two mixed training sessions at an international training camp. Bout and session characteristics, including RPE, physical and mental effort, heart rate (HR) and post-session [La] were recorded. A two-way random-effects intra-class correlation assessed variable stability. Multilevel mixed-effects ordered logistic regression investigated relationships between RPE and other variables for bouts and sessions. RESULTS: Average and minimum HR across sessions correlated highly (ICC=0.95 and 0.94, respectively). Good correlations existed between [La], session-RPE and mental effort, and fair correlation of max HR and physical effort. No relationships existed between [La]/HR and session-RPE. A unit increase in bout-RPE resulted in a 2.09 unit increase in physical, or a 1.36 unit increase in mental, effort holding all other bout variables constant. Gender and competitive level did not influence statistical models. CONCLUSIONS: Results provide further evidence that RPE can be used across a range of competitive levels and genders to monitor workload of mixed sessions and individual randori in judo. Physical effort may play a larger role than mental effort when athletes reflect on exertion during training.