Female footballers need better coaching to protect hamstrings, experts say
theguardian.comCoaching methods are failing to keep up with the rapidly increasing demands of women’s professional football, resulting in more hamstring injuries among top female players.
Experts are calling for women to be trained at a higher level to prevent such injuries. The incidence of hamstring injuries in female footballers has historically been lower than in men, but these figures are changing at the elite level and the incidence is now similar.
They are the most common injury subtype among elite-level female players, accounting for 12-16% of all time-loss injuries. “A team with a 19- to 22-player squad can typically expect three to four hamstring injuries each season,” said Prof Jan Ekstrand at Linköping University in Sweden, who led the research.
It was commissioned by the Union of European Football Associations (Uefa) to investigate the factors underpinning these injuries and identify potential ways to improve player safety.
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