Rebound jump test to measure neuromuscular fatigue : -an attempt to understand training readiness and minimize injury incidence in youth team sports

Sammanfattning: Background: A high injury-incidence in the world of youth team sports requires athletes, teams and healthcare to invest big amounts of money and time. There is a need to find implementable time- and cost-effective strategies that can highlight youth athletes at increased risk of sustaining injuries, to inform the physiotherapist’s/coach’s training plan for training load adjustments. Aim: The primary aim of this report is to investigate whether the rebound jump test (RJ) can be used to detect neuromuscular fatigue, to try minimize the risk of sustaining injuries in youth team sports. The secondary aim is to investigate how the reactive strength index (RSI) in the RJ correlate with the drop jump test (DJ), to try establish concurrent validity of the RJ. Method: In total, 46 male youth soccer players (17,1 ± 1,2 years old) were recruited. RJ were performed in a non-fatigued state and in a fatigued state after a hard football session, whilst the DJ was performed in a non-fatigued state only. Results: RSI-RJ was strongly correlated with the RSI-DJ (r=0,83, r²= 0,69, p<0,01) and there was a significant -12 % difference between RSI-fresh and RJ-fatigue in the RJ (p<0,01). Conclusion: RJ is a valid test to measure neuromuscular fatigue and could inform the physiotherapist/coach about each athletes’ readiness to train on a weekly basis.