Well-being fluctuations and injuries during an entire season in male professional soccer players: an observational study

ABSTRACT

This study aimed to describe and relate the well-being perception and injury incidence of soccer players in an entire soccer season. For 37 weeks, twenty-eight male professional soccer players (25.2 ± 4.3 years old; 22.8 ± 1.4 kg/m²) daily scored (from 1: bad; to 5: perfect) well-being perception (fatigue, sleep, muscle soreness, stress and mood and Hooper Index (HI) as general status). Injuries were also registered. Results showed that players had the lowest well-being perception during Preseason (in terms of HI, fatigue, muscle soreness and stress), being lower than EarlySeason (p_s < 0.05, d_s > 1.0) and/or InSeason (p_s < 0.05, d_s > 1.0). The injury incidence was 8.3 ± 9.2/1000 h, being always higher in training compared to competition (35.0 vs 11.1/1000 h). A lower stress perception (worse) correlated with a higher rate of new injuries during PreSeason (r = -0.84), while a greater muscle soreness and fatigue correlated with the new injuries occurring in the following week during the whole season (r = -0.38 and r = -0.39, respectively). As a conclusion, the well-being perception of professional soccer players was especially low during Preseason, with fatigue, muscle soreness and stress as the most affected items that correlated with injury incidence.

KEYWORDS:

• Wellness
• hopper index
• male professional soccer players
• injuries

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to acknowledge the coaching staff, medical staff, and players who were involved with enthusiasm in the completion of this study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.