581 MEP067 – Hamstring muscle injuries in elite athletics (track and field) athletes

AbstractBackground In athletics (track and field), hamstring muscle injury (HMI) represents an important challenge for athletes, health professionals, coaches and other stakeholders. Objectives 1) to describe hamstring muscle injury (HMI) history and hamstring-specific training (HST) in elite athletes, and 2) to analyse the potential factors associated with in-championships HMI. Design Cross-sectional study.Setting The 2018 European championships in Berlin (Germany).Participants 1570 registered elite athletes.Main Outcomes Measures Personal and training characteristics (sex, age, country, height, weight, discipline, time spent in training), HMI during athlete's career (yes/no), HMI during the current 2017–18 season – from October 2017 to August 2018 (yes/no), and hamstring specific training (strengthening, stretching, core stability, sprinting), and in-championship HMI were recorded using online or paper questionnaire. We calculated the proportions of athletes with HMI history, compared HST according to sex and disciplines with Chi2 tests or ANOVA, and analysed factors associated with in-championship HMI using simple model logistic regression. Results Three hundred fifty-seven athletes replied and among them, 48% reported at least one HMI during their career and 24% during the 2017–18 season. Of them, 30.6% reported reduced or no participation in athletics' training or competition at the start of the championship due to the hamstring injury. For hamstring-specific training, higher volumes of hamstring stretching and sprinting were reported for disciplines requiring higher running velocities (i.e., sprints, hurdles, jumps, combined events and middle distances). We recorded 5 in-championships HMI. The simple model analysis showed a lower risk of sustaining an in-championships HMI for athletes who performed more core (lumbo-pelvic) stability training (OR=0.49 (95%CI: 0.25 to 0.89), p=0.021). Conclusions Our results support the need to improve knowledge athletics-specific risk reduction strategies considering: physical, psychological and social aspects, including not exhaustively load management, running technique, overall health, emotional state, classical aspects, impact of fatigue, climatic conditions and warm-up.