Prevalence of abdominal injuries among team sports athletes: a narrative review

Introduction: Injuries to the core musculature or abdominal musculature, characterized by dysfunction or disruption of the musculoskeletal system between the chest and mid-muscle region, are prevalent in athletic populations. Recognizing the pivotal role of core stability in mitigating such injuries and facilitating coordinated limb movements, core stability training has gained popularity among athletes. Recent research has shed light on the correlation between hip pathology and abdominal muscle injuries, particularly groin injuries, emphasizing the imperative for comprehensive management and prevention strategies. Thus, the aim of this literature review was to investigate the prevalence and impact of abdominal injuries among team sports athletes. Methods: The narrative review was conducted on MEDLINE, CINAHL and Embase using the following keywords, adapted and combined using Boolean operators to build the search string: “Athletes”, “athletic injuries”, “abdominal muscles”, “Sprains and Strains”, and “epidemiology”. After inclusion and exclusion criteria were applied, the articles were independently screened by two authors reading the titles and abstracts or full articles. The quality assessment was conducted using the PEDro scale, the NIH Quality Assessment Tool for observational cohort and cross-sectional studies and MethodologicaAl STandards for Epidemiological Research (MASTER). Results: Through databases research 1303 articles were founded. After the screening process, 10 studies were included for qualitative analysis. Quality scores of the selected observational/cross-sectional studies ranged from “fair” to “good” for NIH tool, with 23 points for MASTER score and a PEDro 7 for the included RCT. Conclusion: Abdominal injuries, which are highly prevalent in kinetic-intensive sports such as football, baseball, soccer and hockey, respond with good clinical results, particularly in terms of the intensity of pain reported by the patient, to a multimodal approach given by a combination of passive and active therapies. Introducción: Las lesiones de la musculatura central o abdominal, caracterizadas por una disfunción o alteración del sistema musculoesquelético entre el tórax y la región muscular media, son frecuentes en las poblaciones atléticas. Reconociendo el papel fundamental de la estabilidad central para mitigar dichas lesiones y facilitar los movimientos coordinados de las extremidades, el entrenamiento de la estabilidad central ha ganado popularidad