Dublin City University, in conjunction with The Camogie Association have been conducting research into injuries and injury prevention methods that occur to Camogie players throughout their careers.
Research by Dr Siobhán O’Connor and her research group in the School of Health and Human Performance in DCU has found that 88.2% of Camogie players responding to a survey had experienced an injury in the previous season and one third of these respondents had to attend the emergency department for treatment of their injury. Injuries can be tough both physically and mentally for any player, and often can come with a financial burden. For coaches, injuries can play a huge role in how a season plays out as key players can be missing, and squad depth is challenged. As such, prevention of injuries in Camogie players is a high priority to keep participants healthy and active, and to reduce financial burdens on health care. There are injury prevention measures for sports that can assist with reducing injury occurrence, but such measures are not commonly used in Ireland.
Injury prevention warm-up programmes consisting of different types of exercises have been developed specifically for Gaelic games, including Camogie. However, anecdotally, the uptake of injury prevention programmes by Camogie coaches and players has been low. An understanding of why players and coaches alike don’t engage with the programmes is needed. This information could help to re-design the programme so that it can be more widely used by teams nationwide.
This study aims to understand Camogie coaches and players’ views on injury prevention programmes and find out if there are any potential barriers to the programme that could be removed to encourage wider uptake. If you are a player or coach, please take 5-10 minutes to complete the survey linked below to have your say!
