Takashi Fukuda, Shumpei Miyakawa, Tsuyoshi Matsumoto, Akito Kawasaki, Masahiro Takemura and Shintaro Mori

[Received October 7, 2011 ; Accepted September 4, 2012] 

American football is an intense contact sport, therefore a lot of injuries occur in both games and practices. A systematic injury report system has been made in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and rule changes and modifications in football have been conducted by the longitudinal data. However there are few longitudinal studies related American football injuries in Japan. The purpose of this study is to confirm the characteristics of collegiate American football injuries in both games and practices based on the longitudinal data. Subjects are 523 American football players of the Univ. of Tsukuba from 1999 to 2008. 790 collegiate American football-related injuries were reported. The game injury rate (43.4/1,000A-Es) was more than 6 times higher than the practice injury rate (6.6/1,000A-Es) (P<0.01). The common types of injuries were ligament sprain in both games and practices (13.9/1,000A-Es and 2.1/1,000A-Es) (P<0.01). Lower extremity injuries like Knee and ankle sprains as well as Hamstrings strain were characteristics in American football. In conclusions, it is important to discuss injury prevention strategies based on the longitudinal studies to reduce injuries.

Keywords: American football, injury, injury prevention

[Football Science Vol.9, 70-78, 2012]