Groin injury assessment in healthy elite youth football players

BACKGROUND: Football is ranked among the sports with higher incidence of hip and groin related injuries. Several studies investigated the assessment of groin injury with divided findings. The aim of our study was to investigate the association of patient-reported outcome from HAGOS with commonly used and novel strength test in healthy young football player.METHODS: Twenty-three youth soccer players of Slovak national U16 team completed a questionnaire of the Copenhagen Hip & Groin Outcome Score (HAGOS). Subsequently, players underwent an assessment of their maximal isometric adductor and abductor strength and maximal eccentric long-lever hip adductor strength on the Force Frame device.RESULTS: No association between any HAGOS subscale and strength measurements was found. Twelve players had 10% strength deficit between dominant and non-dominant leg in long-lever adduction test (P<0.01, d=1.3). Five players showed higher than 10% deficit in short-lever adduction test (P<0.01, d=0.95) and 6 players in short-lever abduction test with no statistical significance or effect size validation. We compared players strength in short-lever tests with UEFA strength norms. In short-lever adduction test, Slovak U16 players are about 0.53% weaker than European players, but with average 3.8% higher strength deficit. In short-lever abduction test, Slovak U16 players are about 7.6% weaker with more than 4.7% higher mean strength deficit present.CONCLUSIONS: The reported outcomes from HAGOS does not correlate with groin strength measurements in health young football players. Significant differences were found between dominant and non-dominant leg during short and long-lever tests, which might be an important factor regarding the early groin risk of injury detection.