Injury Resiliency in Collegiate Running Sports

Michigan News, Laura Bailey

DEVELOPMENT OF A MULTI-LEVEL, SYSTEMS-BASED MODEL FOR INJURY RESILIENCY AT THE INDIVIDUAL AND TEAM LEVEL IN COLLEGIATE RUNNING SPORTS

Team: Richard Gonzalez (LSA, Ross School of Business, ISR, and CoE), Cristine Agresta (Kinesiology), Vineet Raichur (ISR), Jeffrey Housner (Medical School),  Bo Sandoval and Christina Fanning (Athletics), and Jessica Zendler (Zendler Scientific).

Summary: A paradigm shift in the examination of overuse injury mechanisms has recently emerged. The premise suggests that injury is a result of ongoing interactions across multiple factors at multiple levels and presents as non-linear behavior. Furthermore, the emergent patterns and risk profiles are unique to each individual and may explain why some interventions work for certain runners at varying time-points but not others. This shift represents a critical step away from identification of global causes or risk factors and toward identifying patterns or risk profiles based on emergent motor patterns resulting from a web of related determinants. The goal of this research is to develop injury prevention and management strategies and identify opportunities to intervene that would have the greatest impact (both individual and team level) to reduce injury risk and promote athletic resilience. Researchers aim to develop a multi-level, systems-based model for studying running-related injury prediction in collegiate runners. The proposed framework will facilitate the development of analytical models that can predict individual injury risk, as well as identify unique determinants that can and should be corrected to promote resilience.