Higher Rates of Lower Extremity Injury on Synthetic Turf Compared with Natural Turf Among National Football League Athletes
Published in the American Journal of Sports Medicine, 2019 Overview
Football is a strenuous sport for athletes. Researchers set out to test the hypothesis that playing on synthetic turf leads to an increased risk of lower body injury. Their hypothesis was informed by previous research injurious overload situation. From collecting and analyzing injury report data from the NFL between 2012 and 2016, researchers deducted that if all NFL games played on synthetic turf were played on natural grass during the study period, 319 fewer lower body injuries would be expected. When examining noncontact knee, ankle and foot injuries, play on synthetic turf had a 56 percent higher rate of injuries resulting in any time loss and a 67 percent higher rate of injuries resulting in more than eight days of time loss. The increased risk of ankle/foot injuries on synthetic turf was greatest among the three types of injuries examined with a 68% increase in ankle/ foot injuries resulting in any time loss and a 103% increase in injuries resulting in more than eight days of time
Background and Method
Previous research has revealed that football cleats the grass has absorbed force from the cleat and released the cleat back again, rather than capturing the cleat and releasing the force through a players’ foot, ankle or knee, which could cause injury. Since
cleats can easily create divots on natural grass and not on synthetic turf, less force is placed on the lower body, which may help prevent injury.
NFL regular season games played from 2012 through 2016, 555 of which were on synthetic turf and 725 on natural grass.
• All 32 NFL teams report injuries through a robust, unbiased electronic health record system. Each injury report gives full details of the injury and circumstance, such as the contact, impact, activity, time lost, game-day weather, and surface type and conditions.
• The researchers also examined the rates of contact-related injuries and noncontact-related injuries, since noncontact injuries are more likely to be related to the playing surface.
• Incidence Rate Ratios (IRR) were calculated to determine the exact amount of exposure to injury players may have in each game.
A total of 4,801
lower body injuries occurred
2,032 players.
If all NFL games played on synthetic turf were played on natural grass during the study period,
319 fewer lower body injuries
would be expected.
Play on synthetic turf had a
16% higher rate of lower body injuries than on natural grass. This included contact and non-contact injuries that resulted in any time loss.
TPI Turf News November/December 2019
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