LONDON, Aug 22 — Norwegian researchers have studied four years’ worth of international matches and concluded that volleyball players don’t get injured very often. Full results of the study will appear in the September issue of the British Journal of Sports Medicine.

While volleyball may not be one of the glamour sports, there definitely was a palpable energy in the air during the last Olympics as fans of both sexes cheered on Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh as they aimed for their third consecutive gold medal in the beach volleyball competition. Whether practiced indoor or outdoor, it’s an exciting sport to watch, and according to a new study, it’s also one of the safest to play.

The objective of this study was “to describe the risk and pattern of injuries among world-class players based on data from The International Volleyball Federation (FIVB) Injury Surveillance System (ISS) (junior and senior, male and female)” explain the authors, led by Professor Roald Bahr of the Oslo Sports Trauma Research Centre at the Norwegian School of Sport Sciences.

The Injury Surveillance System (ISS) they refer to is based on prospective registration of injuries by team medical staff during all major FIVB tournaments (World Championships, World Cup, World Grand Prix, World League, Olympic Games).

This study was based on data collected between September 2010 and November 2014 obtained through the FIVB ISS during 32 major FIVB events (23 senior and 9 junior).

The ankle is most at risk

The results, which will be published in the September issue of the British Journal of Sports Medicine, reveal that time lost due to injuries during match play came out to 3.8 hours for every 1,000 played, which is considerably lower than in other sports. “This was greater for senior players than for junior players (...) while there was no difference between males and females,” specify the researchers.

After breaking down the results, they also noticed that across all age and sex groups, the ankle was the most commonly injured body part (25.9 per cent), followed by the knee (15.2 per cent), fingers/thumb (10.7 per cent) and lower back (8.9 per cent). They also concluded that injuries were more frequent among attacking players than defensive players. — AFP-Relaxnews