Objectives: The primary objective was to study the reach, effectiveness, adoption, implementation and maintenance of the Nordic Hamstring Exercise (NHE) programme in women's elite teams in Europe in the 2020-21 season. The secondary objective was to compare hamstring injury rates between teams that used the NHE programme regularly in team training and teams that did not.
Methods: Eleven teams participating in the Women's Elite Club Injury Study during the 2020-21 season provided data about injury rates and the implementation of the NHE programme.
Results: One team (9%) used the full original NHE programme, and four teams used the programme in the team training during parts of the season (team training group, n=5). Five teams did not use the NHE, or used it only sporadically for individual players, and one team used NHE only for players with a previous or current hamstring injury (no team training group, n=6). The team training group had a lower incidence of hamstring injuries during match-play (1.4 vs 4.0, p=0.028) than the non-team training group while no difference between groups was shown for the hamstring injury incidence in training (0.6 vs 0.7, p=0.502).
Conclusion: A low adoption of the NHE programme was reported during the 2020-21 season. However, teams that used NHE for the whole team or most players had a lower hamstring injury incidence at match-play than teams that did not use the NHE or used it for individual players only.
Keywords: elite performance; epidemiology; muscle damage/injuries; rehabilitation; training.
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