Emergence of Contact Injuries in Invasion Team Sports: An Ecological Dynamics Rationale
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CURRENT OPINION
Emergence of Contact Injuries in Invasion Team Sports: An Ecological Dynamics Rationale Louis Leventer • Matt Dicks • Ricardo Duarte Keith Davids • Duarte Arau´jo
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Ó European Union 2014
Abstract The incidence of contact injuries in team sports is considerable, and injury mechanisms need to be comprehensively understood to facilitate the adoption of preventive measures. In Association Football, evidence shows that the highest prevalence of contact injuries emerges in one-on-one interactions. However, previous studies have tended to operationally report injury mechanisms in isolation, failing to provide a theoretical rationale to explain how injuries might emerge from interactions between opposing players. In this position paper, we propose an ecological dynamics framework to enhance current understanding of behavioural processes leading to contact injuries in team sports. Based on previous research highlighting the dynamics of performer–environment interactions, contact injuries are proposed to emerge from
L. Leventer (&) Chair for Top Level Sports and Sports Informatics, Faculty of Sport and Health Science, Technische Universita¨t Mu¨nchen, Uptown Mu¨nchen–Campus, Georg-Brauchle-Ring 60/62, 80992 Munich, Germany e-mail: [email protected] M. Dicks Department of Sport and Exercise Science, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth, UK R. Duarte D. Arau´jo CIPER, Faculdade de Motricidade Humana, Spertlab, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal
symmetry-breaking processes during on-field interpersonal interactions among competing players and the ball. Central to this approach is consideration of candidate control parameters that may provide insights on the information sources used by players to reduce risk of contact injuries during performance. Clinically, an ecological dynamics analysis could allow sport practitioners to design training sessions based on selected parameter threshold values as primary and/or secondary preventing measures during training and rehabilitation sessions.
Key Points An ecological dynamics approach proposes how information constrains coordination tendencies between competing/cooperating players and the ball, leading to changes in contact injury risks. Future research needs to consider the information sources to which a performer needs to become perceptually attuned as affordances (possibilities for action) to decrease injury risks. Based on identified control parameter threshold values, training and rehabilitation sessions can be designed to encapsulate specific affordances to which players may learn to become attuned in order to prevent entering high-risk injury situations.
K. Davids FiDiPro Programme, Faculty of Sport and Health Sciences, University of Jyva¨skyla¨, Jyva¨skyla¨, Finland
1 Background
K. Davids Centre for Sports Engineering Research, Sheffield Hallam University, Sheffield, UK
Team sports encompass complex performance environments in which competing players are exposed to injury
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risks. For instance, in elite-level foo
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