According to an NFL report, the National Football League’s (NFL) Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) announced on Thursday, July 15, a four-year, $4 million award to help fund a team of medical researchers led by the University of Wisconsin.
The group said the study will help investigate the prevention and treatment of hamstring injuries for elite football players.
“At the league, we recognize the significant burden hamstring injuries have on our elite athletes year after year, and have dedicated resources to analyzing the occurrence and type of lower extremity injuries to better identify ways we can further reduce them,” said Dr. Allen Sills, NFL Chief Medical Officer via an NFL press release. “We’re hopeful that through the data-based approach outlined by Dr. [Bryan C.] Heiderscheit and his team, this funding will enable them to develop scientifically-based strategies that will advance the health and safety of our players in the years to come.”
The group said hamstring injuries are the most common injuries suffered by NFL players and are the second most burdensome injury in the league, with nearly 75 percent of such injuries resulting in missed time for NFL players.
This award is part of the league’s multi-year effort to better understand and prevent lower extremity injuries, including soft tissue strains such as hamstrings.
The findings from this project aim to determine an individual NFL athlete’s propensity for hamstring strain injury and identify targets for injury mitigation, potentially reducing the injury burden on the player.
In addition to funding medical research, the league is following a data-driven approach to attempt to reduce the incidence of lower extremity injuries by tracking and analyzing turf systems and cleat performance, evaluating injuries to determine how to improve training regimens, and partnering with NFL medical committees to study knee ligament injuries.
Researchers will combine state-of-the-art quantitative imaging, on-field biomechanics, and computational analytics to determine risk factors associated with initial and recurrent hamstring injuries and develop data-driven approaches to help individualize risk assessment.
Joseph Phillips is the Sports Editor for the Chicago Crusader Newspaper. He is a Chicago native, who has been a sports writer for over 17 years. He also hosts the SC Media News and Sports Network Q&A radio show on WHPK 88.5 FM Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected].
Joseph Phillips is the Sports Editor for the Chicago Crusader Newspaper. He is a Chicago native, who has been a sports writer for over 17 years. He also hosts the SC Media News and Sports Network Q&A radio show on WHPK 88.5 FM Chicago.
