Warm-up exercise dramatically reduces injuries in youth sports

A study published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, led by the University's of Bath’s Department for Health and the Rugby Football Union (RFU) has show the dramatic effect of a newly-devised exercise programme in reducing overall injuries for youth rugby.

The School Injury Prevention Study, involved 40 schools and nearly 2,500 players aged 14 – 18, and found that overall injuries fell by 72 per cent when players completed the new 20 minute exercise regime at least three times a week.

The new training and pre-match exercise programme focuses on balance, strength and agility in order to better prepare players for the physical challenges they face in matches and to mitigate potential injury risks.

It is made up of: a running warm-up with change of direction activities (two minutes); lower-limb balance training (four minutes); targeted resistance exercises (eight minutes); plus jumping, side-stepping and landing exercises (six minutes).

The findings also indicated that concussion injuries were reduced by 59 per cent.

Professor Keith Stokes, who led the study from the University, explained: “Over recent years, injury risk in youth rugby has received much attention highlighting the importance of establishing new, evidence-based injury reduction strategies.

“Our results are exciting because they show that carrying out a simple set of exercises on a regular basis can substantially reduce injuries in youth rugby. We believe these findings will have a significant impact in helping to improve player welfare, making the game safer for young players to enjoy.”

Dr Martin Raftery, World Rugby Chief Medical Officer, said: “World Rugby applauds the RFU and the University of Bath on another important and high-quality piece of research that further demonstrates rugby’s commitment to an evidence-driven player welfare approach. We will discuss with both parties how this body of work can be applied to benefit the global game.”