Original researchMonitoring of sport participation and injury risk in young athletes
Introduction
Improvement in athletic performance is highly correlated to the training load of the athlete1, 2 and to the alternation between periods of intense and light training.3, 4, 5 Indeed, sport participation characteristics in high-level sports require careful modulation of both training volume and intensity, in the short term and the long term, to help athletes reach their highest performance level.6 Monitoring of training load is fundamental for trainers to fine-tune the athlete's daily program.7 Although periodization of training should be quantifiable, there is no single indicator or methodology applicable to different training types. Endurance athletes generally use volume as the main outcome, but this does not account for training intensity. Similarly, the latter aspect also deserves attention in sports characterized by high demands in strength and power.
A feasible and well-accepted method is the recording of self-reported rating of the overall workout intensity, called session rating of perceived exertion (RPE), using the Borg scale.8 Training load is subsequently determined by multiplying session intensity by its duration, expressed in arbitrary units. This method was originally proposed by Foster and co-workers2, 8, 9 who concluded that it was a valid method to quantify sport participation in a wide variety of exercise types. Significant correlations have recently been reported between this approach and objective measurements of training intensity in individual high-intensity disciplines,10, 11 in endurance sports12 and in team sports.13, 14, 15
This method could be helpful to monitor sport participation characteristics (e.g. volume and intensity of training and competition) in the field of competitive youth sport. Indeed, many disciplines are characterized by increasingly early specialization, combined with an ever growing training load.16, 17 As a consequence, young athletes encounter many sports-related injuries when practicing at a high level. As previously suggested,16, 17, 18 inappropriate training load and scheduling could be risk factors for sports injuries. Applying the session RPE method in youth sport could therefore provide an opportunity to analyze training load more precisely and to study the relationship between specific characteristics of sport participation and sports injuries.
Therefore, the primary aim of this study was to compare, for the first time, sport participation characteristics of different sport categories in youth sport as evaluated by self-reported rating of overall working intensity and training volume. We hypothesized that sport participation characteristics would be different in team, racket and individual sports. A secondary hypothesis was that sport participation characteristics would be related to injuries.
Section snippets
Methods
This prospective cohort study focused on 269 young elite athletes (12–19 years) enrolled in a regional sport school and followed for 41 weeks (from the 20th of September until the 1st of July). The sport school provides a typical high school curriculum but proposes an adapted time schedule permitting two daily training sessions, some of which are organized within the school program. All pupils were athletes enrolled in the national training center of their respective sport federation and
Results
From the 269 young athletes enrolled at the sport school, 154 athletes (57%) met our inclusion criteria. Compliant and the non-compliant subgroups were similar regarding the proportion of injured athletes (66.3 and 68.8%, respectively), as well as sex distribution and sport categories represented.
All data presented hereafter are from the subsample of compliant athletes. On average, athletes were 14.1 years old, males accounted for 64.9%, and the proportion of athletes engaged in team, racket
Discussion
The most important finding of this study was that the youth sport categories investigated here were defined by largely distinct sport participation characteristics. This observation confirms our main hypothesis which stipulated that sport participation patterns would be different in team, racket and individual sports. Moreover, the methodology applied here allowed for identification of variations of weekly load over the sport season (Fig. 1). Additionally, differences of several sport
Conclusion
This study investigated, for the first time, the relationship between sport participation pattern and injury risk in youth sport. The method applied here to describe sport participation behavior was sensitive to display the weekly load variations over the whole sport season, to discriminate between different sport categories, and to highlight age-related differences. Team sports had the lowest training load but the highest injury risk. Apart from short-term modifications in intensity, no
Practical implications
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The monitoring of both volume and intensity of sport participation is important to optimize the training schedule in youth sports.
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Intensity can be evaluated by the session rating of perceived exertion.
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The methodology applied in this study allows for more accurate determination of true training load and is sensitive to distinguish between different sport categories and identify seasonal variations.
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This methodology has the potential to identify athletes who are at an increased risk of sports
Acknowledgments
The present study was financially supported by the National Research Fund (AFR ref.1189878) via a post-doc grant for the first author, the National Ministry of Sport, and the National Olympic Committee.
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