Practical tips for in-season injury prevention and monitoring professional football players

With Rob Swire (Manchester United) and Stijn Vandenbroucke (Moscow Dynamo). ‘You always start off the season with a masterplan of what you are wanting to do but we’ve never had a master plan that works or goes anywhere near where it is supposed to, but you just try your best’. Given this validation of what you are doing, listen and see how you CAN make prevent injuries and improve team performance by working as a team with your other health professional as well as strength and conditioning colleagues. It’s all about load monitoring and here you can hear from two very experienced physios in the field. What role GPS? What role other software? This is a scenario where ‘e-Health’ or ‘M-health’ meets performance. Our guests speak about how to customise training and monitor players’ adaptation – What are the things to watch out for? When can a player return to training after an injury spell? Is the coach the greatest risk factor – and can the GPS help communicate load messages to the coach? See also: General practitioners’ perceptions and practices of physical activity counselling: changes over the past 10 years: http://bjsm.bmj.com/content/43/14/1149.full Technology in Paralympic sport: performance enhancement or essential for performance?: http://bjsm.bmj.com/content/44/3/215.full Planning and implementing a nationwide football-based health-education programme: http://bjsm.bmj.com/content/46/1/6.full Monitoring stress and recovery: new insights for the prevention of injuries and illnesses in elite youth soccer players: http://bjsm.bmj.com/content/44/11/809.full Reproducibility of computer based neuropsychological testing among Norwegian elite football players: http://bjsm.bmj.com/content/39/suppl_1/i64.full