Vermont will be the first location in the U.S. to test out a proven successful youth injury prevention protocol developed in Europe – called FIFA 11+ – for youth high school athletes. With support from a new three-year grant from the Orthopaedic Research and Education Foundation, James Slauterbeck, M.D., a University of Vermont orthopaedic surgeon, and colleagues will work with athletes from 13 high schools to observe athletic team warm-up routines, track injuries, and compare the effectiveness of traditional injury prevention programs to the FIFA 11+ protocol.
“FIFA 11+ was developed by an international group of experts to decrease lower extremity injury in soccer athletes, ages 14 years and up,” says Slauterbeck, who is an associate professor of orthopaedics and rehabilitation and a team physician for UVM Athletics. “It’s a pre-practice warm-up program that is low-cost, time-efficient – it takes less than 15 minutes – and easy for coaches to administer. The program, which consists of exercises to increase strength, improve coordination, and teach running strategy must be performed two times per week to be effective.”
The sports followed in the study will include football, soccer, basketball and lacrosse. In year one of the three-year project, former UVM associate athletic trainer Rebecca Choquette will observe the warm-up routine at the 13 participating high schools, record any injuries among the players and stratify the information.
In year two, the researchers will conduct a prospective, randomized trial where half of the schools follow the FIFA11+ warm-up protocol, while the other half of the schools will follow their regular warm-up routines. The information will be stratified by school. In addition to injury reduction, the group will also be tracking concussions among the youth athletes, with guidance from UVM neuropsychiatrist James Hudziak, M.D., director of the Vermont Center for Children, Youth and Families.
The third year, says Slauterbeck, will be observational. If the FIFA 11+ program is shown effective, he and his colleagues will be in a strong position to apply for a multicenter National Institutes of Health grant.
UVM’s orthopaedics and rehabilitation researcher team has a strong track record studying lower extremity injuries.
“The ACL injury risk factor research we have completed over the last 9 years has informed us – we know the subset of athletes to pay attention to and hopefully we can begin to target these athletes with injury prevention strategies,” says Slauterbeck, who adds that a recent study investigating varsity sports showed that an injury prevention program can significantly reduce related health care costs, so this project could realize a meaningful cost savings for Vermont.