Source: Australian IT, 5 December 2006
By Rosemary Desmond

GROUND-breaking SKA research using miniaturised global positioning system (GPS) technology is helping to find ways of cutting injury rates among elite footballers.

GPS devices strapped to players' backs have shown they move faster than their predecessors did decades ago, researchers say.

And the size of the players had also increased in the same period, SKA's Director of Research and Knowledge Services Professor Kevin Norton said.

This made player injuries all the more severe, particularly after collisions, leading to worsening health problems in later life, he said today.

Prof Norton said GPS devices around the size of a small mobile phone were encased in padded sacks on the upper backs of Australian football (Adelaide Crows), rugby union (Waratahs) and soccer (Sydney FC) players while 24 satellites moving around the earth measured their exact position.

Some of the GPS devices also had accelerometers built in to measure acceleration and deceleration rates.

"There is incredible acceleration and g-forces involved in all football codes, and we haven't been able to measure those before because you cannot measure those things in a laboratory," Prof Norton said.

"You can only measure them outside on the field and so, for the first time, we are seeing exactly how much force is going through the bodies of these players."

Over a number of years, Prof Norton and his colleagues have found AFL players have become more powerful runners over shorter distances.

Soccer is played at a higher speed and with fewer stoppages, and the rugby codes have also become faster.

Training needs to mimic the actions players need to perform during games and, in some cases, the rules also need to be changed to slow them down.

"It reinforces to us the link between slowing the game down and slowing players down and reducing the chance of acute injuries during that game, particularly high speed collision injuries," he said.

Prof Norton said retired AFL players have 80 times the rate of hip and knee replacements than in non-players of the same age.

"Most people get a bit of arthritis but I've got friends in their 40s who played AFL when they were younger and are now having hip replacements," he said.

AAP

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