Preventing musculoskeletal injuries among recreational adult volleyball players: design of a randomised prospective controlled trial

Background: Both acute and overuse injuries are common among recreational volleyball players, especially finger/wrist, ankle, shoulder and knee injuries. Consequently, an intervention ('VolleyVeilig') was developed to prevent or reduce the occurrence of finger/wrist, shoulder, knee and ankle injuries among recreational volleyball players. This article describes the design of a study evaluating the effectiveness of the developed intervention on the one-season occurrence of finger/wrist, shoulder, knee and ankle injuries among recreational adult volleyball players. Methods: A randomized prospective controlled trial with a follow-up period of one volleyball season will be conducted. Participants will be healthy recreational adult volleyball players (18 years of age or older) practicing volleyball (training and/or match) at least twice a week. The intervention ('VolleyVeilig') consists of a warm-up program based on more than 50 distinct exercises (with different variations and levels). The effect of the intervention programme on the occurrence of injuries will be compared to volleyball as usual. Outcome measures will be incidence of acute injury (expressed as number of injuries per 1000 h of play) and prevalence of overuse injuries (expressed as percentage). Discussion: This study will be one of the first randomized prospective controlled trials evaluating the effectiveness of an intervention on the occurrence of both acute and overuse injuries among recreational adult volleyball players. Outcome of this study could possibly lead to the nationwide implementation of the intervention in all volleyball clubs in The Netherlands, ultimately resulting in less injuries.