The Effect of Ten-Week FIFA 11+ Injury Prevention Program for Kids on Performance and Fitness of Adolescent Soccer Players

Abstract

Background: Soccer is the world’s most popular sport, with most players being younger than 18 years. “FIFA 11+ Kids” has been recently introduced to prevent soccer injuries in adolescent players. This program would be more accepted and followed by coaches and players if it were to also promote performance and physical fitness in players. The purpose of this study was to assess the effect of a ten-week FIFA 11+ for kids Injury prevention program on performance and physical fitness in adolescent soccer players. Methods: 56 adolescent players participated in this study from Tehran province, Iran. They were divided into intervention and control groups. The intervention group underwent 10 weeks of FIFA 11+ warm-up exercise for kids, while the control group followed its routine warm-up. Both groups took the slalom dribbling, Illinois, sit and reach, standing long jump, triple hop, Y balance, 40 and 20-yard sprint, plank and side plank tests one week before and after the program. Results: Covariance analysis showed that the intervention group gained significantly better results in Y balance, triple hop distance, and 40-yard speed tests compared to the control group as the result of the ten-week FIFA 11+ injury prevention program for kids. No significant difference was seen in the slalom dribbling, Illinois, sit and reach, standing long jump, 20-yard sprint, plank, and side plank between the groups. Conclusions: Y balance, triple hop distance and 40-yard speed tests could benefit from the11+ kids program owing to the specificity principle of training; since the main focus of the11+ kids program is on plyometric and balance exercises. As the 11+ Kids program does not contain the related drills to improve the performance and other fitness components, it is therefore not expected to improve the slalom dribbling, Illinois, sit and reach, standing long jump, 20-yard sprint, plank, and side plank. However, the 11+ kid’s program could enhance some of the related physical fitness components such as balance which has been shown to be related to sport injuries and may probably be effective in sport injury prevention.