How to Prevent Injuries in Alpine Ski Racing: What Do We Know and Where Do We Go from Here?
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REVIEW ARTICLE
How to Prevent Injuries in Alpine Ski Racing: What Do We Know and Where Do We Go from Here? Jo¨rg Spo¨rri1
•
Josef Kro¨ll1 • Matthias Gilgien2,3 • Erich Mu¨ller1
Ó The Author(s) 2016. This article is published with open access at Springerlink.com
Abstract Alpine ski racing is known to be a sport with a high risk of injury and a high proportion of time-loss injuries. In recent years, substantial research efforts with regard to injury epidemiology, injury etiology, potential prevention measures, and measures’ evaluation have been undertaken. Therefore, the aims of this review of the literature were (i) to provide a comprehensive overview of what is known about the aforementioned four steps of injury prevention research in the context of alpine ski racing; and (ii) to derive potential perspectives for future research. In total, 38 injury risk factors were previously reported in literature; however, a direct relation to injury risk was proven for only five factors: insufficient core strength/core strength imbalance, sex (depending on type of injury), high skill level, unfavorable genetic predispo-
& Jo¨rg Spo¨rri [email protected] Josef Kro¨ll [email protected] Matthias Gilgien [email protected] Erich Mu¨ller [email protected] 1
Department of Sport Science and Kinesiology, University of Salzburg, Schlossallee 49, 5400 Hallein-Rif, Austria
2
Department of Physical Performance, Norwegian School of Sport Sciences, PO Box 4014, Ulleva˚l Stadion, 0806 Oslo, Norway
3
Center of Alpine Sports Biomechanics, St. Moritz Health and Innovation Foundation, Via Somplaz 1, 7500 St. Moritz, Switzerland
sition, and the combination of highly shaped, short and wide skis. Moreover, only one prevention measure (i.e. the combination of less-shaped and longer skis with reduced profile width) has demonstrated a positive impact on injury risk. Thus, current knowledge deficits are mainly related to verifying the evidence of widely discussed injury risk factors and assessing the effectiveness of reasonable prevention ideas. Nevertheless, the existing knowledge should be proactively communicated and systematically implemented by sport federations and sport practitioners.
Key Points In the context of alpine ski racing to date, various potential injury risk factors and prevention measures have been suggested in the literature. However, statistical evidence has been proven for only a few of them, and only one prevention measure has been demonstrated to significantly reduce injury risk. Future research should aim to fill the lack of knowledge revealed by this review of the literature. In principle, our current knowledge is limited within all four steps of van Mechelen’s ‘sequence of prevention’ model. Major deficits were observed to be (i) the assessment of evidence of potential injury risk factors; and (ii) the evaluation of effectiveness of etiology-derived injury prevention measures. An absent, yet important perspective is that of monitoring and preventing injuries at the youth level. In this field
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