Assessment of Lower Extremity Flexibility in Recreational Football Players.

Abstract

As football is a sport that involves great physical strength, youngsters, who are under no professional guidance while playing recreationally are exposed to a wide array of musculoskeletal injuries due to lack of awareness of proper warming up, stretching and cool down techniques. For the players to function at an optimum level and for them to be less susceptible to injuries, it is important to maintain flexibility of especially the lower extremity muscles as these muscles are under greater usage while playing football. Our study involves assessment of flexibility of the lower extremity muscles in recreational football players and determining the incidence of muscular tightness. Ober’s test, Ely’s test, Thomas’ test, and 90-90 SLR test for iliotibial band, rectus femoris, iliopsoas, and hamstrings muscles respectively. The results of the study show that, of the four muscles assessed in the study, the hamstrings were the most affected, with 84% of the participants testing positive for tightness, followed by iliopsoas with 43%, rectus femoris 33% and iliotibial band tightness with 26%. We also found that about 18 participants had two muscles tight at same time, while 10 had only one muscle tight, 6 had three muscles tight, 3 had no muscles affected and 3 participants had all four muscles tight at the same time. From this study we can conclude that the incidence of hamstring tightness was found to be the highest amongst the four muscles tested, followed by iliopsoas, rectus femoris, and iliotibial band muscle tightness.