gms | German Medical Science

Objectives: Injury prevention strategies in football include both training or warm up exercises and also functional screening tests. Tests as on field-batteries or in laboratory settings may represent adequate tools to analyse neuromotorical and functional capacities or deficits of players in the preseason period. Until now, no test standards are implemented in German salaried football.Purpose of this study was to identify differences in neuromotorical capacities between junior and adult football players in German elite football.

Methods: In a prospective controlled cohort study of male elite football players in Germany (62 teams), a neuromotoric on field test battery was implemented to identify the specific performance data of elite players of the 4th to 7th league as well as the highest junior elite league. We used a one-leg-test for postural stability, drop jump and side hop for jumps and strength and the pro-agility-test for agility testing. Leg dominance was investigated by limb symmetry index (EbM-Level II).

Results: We could show league specific differences with best performance values for all tests in the highest elite football league (4th league). Especially in the proprioception and side hop test4th league players presented significant higher (p=0.001) performance values than 5th, 6th and 7th league players. Junior players on highest level ranged mostly between 5th and 6th league in proprioception, side hop and drop jump testing while in agility testing, they reached the weakest results of all playing levels. Limb symmetry showed a dominance of the right kicking leg without big differences from dominant to non-dominant leg represented by the limb symmetry index.

Conclusion: The implemented preseason screening tests showed significant differences in functional capacities of the lower extremity in football players of different playing levels. Especially for players with short-term change from lower to higher football levels these results underline a step-for-step increase as important preventive strategy to avoid overload on players. Junior players in the transition process to adult football show significant weakness in agility testing compared to all adult elite football levels and therefor they also need a step-for-step adaptation to the new playing levels as part of an injury prevention strategy.