Criteria in Return to Football

Abstract

Lower limb muscle injuries are one of the major problems in football, representing one third to one fourth of all time-loss injuries. Besides great efforts in trying to improve prevention strategies, our understanding of mechanisms and risk factors is still limited, and reported injury and reinjury rates have not decreased in the last decades. One of the most widely accepted risk factors for lower extremity muscle injury in football is a previous identical or lower limb joint injury. Regular assessment of football players with lower limb muscle injuries should include objective and quantitative, clinical and functional tests with the potential to identify neuromuscular and biomechanical deficits. The interrelationships between all the risk factors involved in lower limb muscle injuries should always be considered. Ideally, progression through the different phases of the rehabilitation programme should only be allowed after meeting specific criteria. Return to play (RTP) decisions in lower limb muscle injuries should not exclusively rely in imaging results and should always be taken in conjunction with information obtained from other objective clinical and functional tests. RTP decisions in muscle injuries are very much related with risk management and will usually need of players and clinicians shared decision-making.