Effects of injury prevention programs on physical performance and neuromuscular control in youth soccer

The practice of sports on a regular basis has proven to be a vital component for maintaining an active and healthy lifestyle that lasts a lifetime, reducing the risk of suffering from numerous non-communicable diseases (e.g., cardiovascular disease [atherosclerosis], certain types of cancer [breast and colon], metabolic disorders [diabetes mellitus] and respiratory disease [chronic obstructive pulmonary disease]) and helps maintain an optimal state of physical, psychological and social well-being in children and adolescents. In this sense, given that soccer (i.e., associate football) is the most popular sport in the world, being most of its practitioners under the age of 18, it could have great potential to induce the aforementioned effects in young people. However, the high physical demands of the game of soccer alongside the decline in essential motor performance that often occurs during the years of maximal rate of growth and maturation may place young players at high risk of suffering an injury in comparison with their non-athlete counterparts. Thus, soccer-related injuries can counter the health-related beneficial effects of sports participation at a young age if a child or adolescent is unable to continue to participate because of the residual effects of injury. Within the last years, a number of neuromuscular training programs have been designed with the aim of preventing and reducing the number and severity of soccerrelated injuries in children and adolescents. The effectiveness of these neuromuscular training programs to reduce non-contact and overuse injuries in young soccer players has been documented in systematic reviews and meta-analyses. Although the main purpose of these neuromuscular training programs is injury prevention, knowing the effects (acute and chronic) elicited by them on physical performance and neuromuscular control measures could help identify the potential mechanism underlying the reported reduction in the incidence of injuries. Therefore, the main objective of this doctoral thesis ...