Edinburgh Napier University

  Noncontact injuries occur during manoeuvres such as landing, accelerating and the side-cut. This investigation has assessed the prevalence and manoeuvres associated with noncontact injuries and the current warm up practice. An online questionnaire was utilised to assess injury epidemiology (n=437, males (m)=48%, females (f)=52%) and an observational notational technique was employed to assess warm up practice (n=17, m=7, f=10). The Hockey Injury Questionnaire showed noncontact injuries were sustained by 57% of all players, 80% of which to the lower extremity. The overall frequency of injuries was 5.7 injuries/1000 playing hours. Females were injured more frequently than males (6.6 vs 4.0 injuries per 1000 hours). These injuries were caused by a side-cut (21%) and acceleration (16%) causing injuries to the knee (23%) and hamstring (20%). These injuries were sustained during training (37%) and 3rd quarter (18%). The two most common injuries were muscle strains (29%) and pulled muscles (24%) in males causing no time off (30%) and 2 weeks off (26%). In females, muscle sprains (20%) and ligament sprains (18%) were frequent causing no time off (37%) and to miss the next exposure (16%). The entire warm up lasted 21 min for male teams, 25 mins for females. The warming up aspect lasted for about 15 min (m=14.8 mins, f=14.5 min); the skill rehearsal aspect lasted for about 7 min (m=7 min, f=10 min). The warm ups were mostly devised by qualified coaches (77%). Only one warm up contained proprioceptive exercises. A post warm up questionnaire showed the coaches devised the warm ups were mostly performed as planned (65%). However, 77% of coaches would like to alter the warm up to include injury reduction exercises (n=6), dynamic stretches (n=4) and more time (n=4). This research shows that noncontact injuries are common to the lower extremity and the knee. Over 33% of the injuries occurred in training. Females sustained more noncontact injuries than males despite warming up for a longer. There is a large disparity in the length of the warm up skill rehearsal period and total time. The content, which coaches would like to alter, is largely in the sagittal plane contrary to the playing actions. Therefore, a sport-specific warm up to alter movement patterns and reduce injuries is needed.