AMONG MALE FOOTBALL PLAYERS, THE PREVALENCE OF KNEE INJURIES IN DOMINANT VS NON-DOMINANT LEG

INTRODUCTION

Football participation in professional as well as recreational terms has increased dramatically in recent decades (1). Football is one of the high-contact sports just like basketball, ice hockey, rugby, and handball. In 1000 training hours of football, 6-35 injuries may occur (2, 3). It is part of a group of sports that involve the highest intensity of torsional loading and joint impact  (4, 5).

Context: The most popular sport worldwide is football. Professional and recreational participation has grown significantly in the last several years. It is well known that football players sustain injuries more frequently than people who play other sports or work in other occupations. Therefore, reducing this level of danger is crucial for professional football team management, medical personnel, and players themselves. In football, this dominance of one leg is particularly apparent.

There ought to be a distinction in the frequency of knee injuries in the dominant and non-dominant knees because of variations in knee loading dynamics, strength, and proprioceptive input in the two limbs. The pattern of injury in football has been analyzed by several authors(6, 7). 6-9 injuries may occur in every thousand hours of exposure to top-level football (in thousand training hours, 3-5 injuries may happen while 24-30 injuries occur in each 1000 match hours) (8). Lower extremity injuries, particularly those involving the ankle and knee, are the most prevalent cause of missed practice and game time among athletes in numerous sports.

When compared to participants in other sports and jobs, football players are known to have a higher rate of injury. It is consequently critical, and a legal necessity, for managers of professional football teams to minimize this degree of risk wherever feasible to safeguard their players’ safety as well as health, and do whatever is generally possible (2, 9-14). The frequency, categories, and severity of football injuries have all been investigated in many studies (3, 15-17). There have also been reports of more injuries to the dominant leg, which is utilized for kicking (18).

Knee injuries, particularly medial collateral ligament (MCL)and injury of the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) can be quite

serious and have long-term consequences. These injuries account for 15-50 percent of all injuries in various sports. ACL injuries account for roughly 100,000 injuries per year in the total US population, with an estimated annual incidence of 1 in 3,000 (19).

ACL injuries are among the most serious injuries in soccer, requiring lengthy recovery (15, 20, 21). Surprisingly, the majority of ACL injuries occur in the absence of external influences (22). Quick changes of direction and jump landings are two examples (23). Muscle activity must guarantee that the knee joint is stabilized in all directions while landing after a leap, such as in header scenarios (24). Injury to the knee joint appears to be linked to a lack of neuromuscular stability (25).

Neuromuscular requirements of supporting the leg and kicking the leg are not the same at all (26, 27). When landing on one leg, it’s reasonable to suppose that distinct activity of muscle in both extremities will result in varying degrees of knee joint’s muscular stabilization of the knee joint. Because ACL injuries on the dominant, kicking leg are slightly more common than on the non-dominant side in men’s soccer, questions regarding the role of various landing kinematics in this circumstance arise

(28-30). The dominance of one leg is especially noticeable in soccer (31).

The concept of dominance is that while executing the motor tasks of the lower limb, the use of one leg is predominant over the other (32). The definition of the dominant leg in this study is as a limb

Conclusion

We have concluded that prevalence of knee injuries is not significantly different between dominant vs non-dominant knee.

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