Our understanding of non-contact ACL injuries in football has grown. This study used 3D simulation to analyse injuries in 33 professional football players. The “dynamic valgus tendency” seen in previous studies was confirmed. However, additional rotation in the knee joint before the injury was also highlighted. The injuries happened in different situations, suggesting that environmental factors play an important part.
This information can be used to plan better injury prevention programmes.
Background
The understanding of noncontact anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury causation in soccer has improved over the past decades. Bidimensional video analyses have significantly augmented our awareness, representing to date the only practical method to describe injury biomechanics. However, the extent of the problem continues to raise serious concerns.
Purpose
To advance our understanding of the causal pathways leading to ACL injury with a large-scale reconstruction of 3- dimensional (3D) whole-body joint kinematics of injuries that occurred to male elite soccer players, as well as to compare the joint angle time course among situational patterns
