The correlation between injury prevalence, training load and cardiovascular capacity in adolescent handball players

Background: Today, sport specific high school educations is a common alternative for students applying for educations. The majority of the larger cities in Sweden has this option for adolescent athletes, allowing them to start their journey towards the elite in an early age. However, this option leads to higher training volume and a greater responsibility for the young athletes. If training volume is not controlled the everyday life of the athletes gets affected and the risk of injuries increases. Aim: The aim of this study was to determine if training volume, injury prevalence and type of injury differed between young female and male students attending a handball specific high school education. Furthermore, the aim was to analyse whether cardiovascular capacity and training volume have a high (r > 0.50) correlation with the injury prevalence among students attending the sport specific handball high school education. Methods: When examining training habits, injuries and cardiovascular capacity in this study, a questionnaire and the submaximal Åstrands cycle ergometer test was used. The questionnaire was a compilation of two already existing and validated questionnaire and the Åstrands test was performed according to the existing test manual to guarantee valid results. Results: The main results in this study show a significant difference in training volume between sexes, the women in the study had an increased training volume of 2 hours/week compared to men. The most common type of injury was overload injuries (68% of all injuries). However, there was no significant difference between sexes although an indication that women suffers from more acute injuries than men was seen. There was a moderate correlation (rs=0.43) between training volume and injury prevalence but no correlation when dividing the group by sex. Conclusions: The conclusion from this study is that female adolescent handball players in a handball specific high school education have both higher injury prevalence and higher training volume than age-, sports- and school matched male players. Also, for all participants in a handball specific high school education an increased training volume is likely to increase the risk of injury in the athletes. Also, there was a trend that women had a higher injury prevalence than men. Therefore, adaption in training volume should be made with care and under observation from coaches to adapt the athletes and avoid further injuries