The full article can be found here
Tell us more about yourself and the author team.
Our study team includes two premier roundnet athletes from the USA (Ryan and Skyler), two orthopaedic surgeons (Dr Bishop and Dr Freedman) from Rothman Orthopaedics in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and three medical students and research assistants (Ryan, Richa, and Rahul).
What is the story behind your study?
Through his time training for and playing at the premier level of roundnet, Ryan heard of many peers going through significant injuries, causing them to miss playing time and even requiring surgery. He created a research team with his mentors from Rothman Orthopaedics to investigate this. He reached out to Skyler Boles from Spikeball Inc. so clinicians could better understand the sport of roundnet and the possible injuries these athletes may experience.
In your own words, what did you find?
Our study surprisingly found that roundnet athletes most frequently injure their shoulder and ankle and that injuries are 50/50 between acute and chronic injuries. We also show that roundnet athletes have a very high training workload, with 3 3-hour weekly training sessions across 9-10 months per year. As the sport is rapidly becoming more competitive, training workloads may continue to increase, putting athletes at further risk of injury.
What was the main challenge you faced in your study?
The main challenge of this study was interpreting the athletes’ descriptions of their injuries. Some injuries were not as clearly described, which limited the potential conclusions we could draw about the causes of these injuries.
If there is one take home message from your study, what would that be?
Roundnet athletes train often throughout most of the year, putting them at risk for both acute and chronic injuries, with some even requiring surgery! Future research can help optimize injury prevention programs for athletes in this emerging sport.