Movement Patterns in Young Volleyball Athletes

Optimizing Body and Movement Specific Characteristics in Volleyball Players to Reduces Injuries in Young Athletes.

This project is a consequence of the research chair project studying the same phenomenon in adult volleyball players. The project will make use of and be part of the routine medical screening that is taken by the young players of the first degree of the Leuven Volleyball School, Belgium. All young players must undergo a routine medical investigation and movement screening. This is obliged by the law. The current project will use these data. Outcome parameters will be used to advice the trainer staff of the school to adjust their training interventions. This is normal routine too as the involved medical department has been advising the school for many years. Players will be followed up for 6 weeks. After those 6 weeks, the movement screening will be repeated to evaluate the change in the different outcome parameters. This last screening is not part of a normal routine as players normally are investigated more in a subjective way. The medical team and school want to change that routine.

Data will be used to further improve training modalities and sports performance and reduce injury risk in these young athletes.

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Training; Injuries; Athlete; Youth
• Intervention / Treatment: Other: Training intervention

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 14
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• Belgium
  • Leuven, Belgium, 3000
    • UZ Leuven

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 11 years to 13 years (Child)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: No
• Genders Eligible for Study: All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• All students from the first degree of the Volleyball school will participate
• Male and female athletes will be included
• Signing of an informed consent and assent form (for young kids) to use data for research
• Agreement given by the medical staff to use data and allowing the kids to be accepted by the school

Exclusion Criteria:

• When inclusion criteria are not met

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Prevention
• Allocation: N/A
• Interventional Model: Single Group Assignment
• Masking: None (Open Label)

Number of Arms

1

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm

Intervention / Treatment

Other: Training intervention; See information elsewhere

Other: Training intervention; Based on the baseline screening, which is part of the normal prevention routine within the school, all athletes are given individual advice with regard to points of attention within training. For example: those athletes with reduced balance, will get more balance training. Intervention is individual as said and will be guided and supervised by the physical trainer and medical staff of the school.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Change of joint mobility	Mobility will be assessed by using goniometer measurements (degrees of movement)	Difference between baseline and 6 weeks
Change of strength	Strength will be assessed by using handheld dynamo-meter data (Newton)	Difference between baseline and 6 weeks
Change in balance score	Stability is measured using the score on the Star Excursion Balance Test (numeric score on balance scale)	Difference between baseline and 6 weeks
Change in lower limb joint angles during a single leg drop vertical jump	Movement quality is measured using joint angles (trunk, pelvis, hip, knee, ankle)	Difference between baseline and 6 weeks
Change in lumbopelvic stability score	Lumbopelvic stability is scored using 9 clinical tests (Bend knee fall out, Active straight leg raise, prone knee bend, sitting knee extension, standing bow, pelvic tilt, one leg stance, backward rocking, forward rocking). Each test is given a score between 0 (poor performance) and 2 (good performance) adding up to a total score of 18.	Difference between baseline and 6 weeks
Change in lower limb joint angles during a drop jump	Movement quality is measured using joint angles (trunk, pelvis, hip, knee, ankle)	Difference between baseline and 6 weeks

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Individualized web diagram of all outcome measurements	Baseline data on joint mobility (joint angles), strength (N), balance (Star Excursion Balance Test Score, lumbopelvic control scores) and joint angles during a drop jump and single leg drop vertical jump) are all visualized on a web diagram per athlete	Baseline
Number of injuries	Description of number of injuries	Baseline information from medical investigation

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: Universitaire Ziekenhuizen KU Leuven
• Investigators: Principal Investigator: Filip F Staes, prof, KU Leuven

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): September 25, 2017
• Primary Completion (Actual): December 23, 2018
• Study Completion (Actual): December 23, 2018

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: September 10, 2017
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: September 14, 2017
• First Posted (Actual): September 15, 2017

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): November 3, 2020
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: November 2, 2020
• Last Verified: November 1, 2020

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Other Study ID Numbers: S60760

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

• Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?: No
• IPD Plan Description: No individual data will be shared with other researchers. Data will be available to the medical and trainers staff. For research purposes, all data will be made anonymous.

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No