The “unsurmountable increase” in the number of lower extremity injuries in 13-18 year old hurlers and Gaelic football players is to be addressed with the announcement today of the country’s first-ever National Adolescent Injury Prevention Programme in what will be a unique collaboration between the GAA and Institute of Technology Carlow (IT Carlow).
Training overload, skeletal immaturity and adolescent growth spurts, combined with training errors, poor techniques and mismatched age groups (size, maturity and experience), has resulted in adolescent GAA players being particularly vulnerable to injury, according to Dr. Clare Lodge, a Chartered Physiotherapist and Lecturer at IT Carlow. She will lead a research programme designed to monitor and prevent the growing epidemic of adolescent sports injuries and facilitate a healthy player pathway from underage to adulthood.