CO-ORDINATION, BALANCE, PROPRIOCEPTION AND CORE STABILITY EXERCISES AMONG FOOTBALL PLAYERS IN TERMS OF PREVENTION OF INJURIES AND IMPROVEMENT OF PERFORMANCE: A RANDOMISED TRIAL

Undoubtedly, the physical contact in football demands great physical capacity known as the capacity to perform repeated accelerations and high intensity efforts.  Injuries in football occur much more frequently than expected, posing a limited factors for these athletes. The question of the effectiveness of co-ordination, balance, proprioception and core stability training to sports performance, injury prevention and health have been addressed recently. The Coordination is the ability to execute smooth, accurate, controlled motor responses (optimal interaction of muscle function). The Balance training is the practice of using exercises to improve the stability. This includes exercises that strengthen the muscles that help keep upright the legs and core. The Proprioception is an important bodily neuromuscular sense. The somatosensation is a sixth sense of our body. The Core stability exercises are designed to improve the strength and efficiency of core muscles. 30 football players have been selected through convenient sampling method and assessed with Physical Activity Readiness Questionnaire (PAR-Q) Form. In randomised Controlled Trail, 15 Football players (Experimental Group) have been trained with this coordination, proprioception, Balance and Core training exercises and the remaining 15 Football players (Control Group) have been trained in usual Football training program. Later, both the teams have been allowed to play a football match. During the match, the numbers of injuries have been counted. The intervention was successful in reducing injury incidence. Upon finishing this research study, it was clear that these programs focused on reduction of injury rate in sport especially for knees and ankles.