Playing surface
The transition from outdoor to indoor football is quite an adaptation. Our outdoor football is played on grass and our indoor football is played on artificial or synthetic turf of the 3rd generation… or what FIFA prefers to call it; FOOTBALL TURF.
Third-generation artificial turf pitches were introduced in the late 1990s, made of long (.40 mm) and much more widely spread fibers of polypropylene or polyethylene filled with rubber granules. For many years it has been thought that turf surfaces were prone to football injuries. New studies demonstrate the opposite. It has been proven that no evidence of a greater risk of injury was found when football was played on artificial turf compared with natural grass (J Ekstrand, T Timpka, M Hägglund, 2006).
For us people of the north, these football turfs have given us the opportunity to play football all year long. My biggest concern is that in order for these articles to be true, the football turfs installed by our government all over Quebec must be placed on properly. By properly I mean all the different layers of the complete designed structure…
Do they save money by putting less layers of components? And if that’s the case, are we as players more prone to injury? If all layers of the turf installment are not properly put, then the shock created by running does affect our body.
Look up the following articles on artificial turf versus natural grass. The first one is a study on risk of injury and the second one analysis football movement patterns.
J Ekstrand, T Timpka, M Hägglund, 2006. Risk of injury in elite football played on artificial turf versus natural grass: a prospective two-cohort study. Br J Sports Med 2006;40:975–980
H. Andersson; B. Ekblom; P.Krustrup. Elite football on artificial turf versus natural grass: Movement patterns, technical standards, and player impressions. J Sports Sci. 2008 Jan 15;26(2):113-22.
Dr. Football “Promoting Football Science” P.F.S.
photo by Jesse Bowden
Tags: artificial turf pitches, B. Ekblom, fibers of polypropylene, FIFA, football injuries, FOOTBALL TURF, H. Andersson, indoor football, J Ekstrand, M Hägglund, P.Krustrup, rubber granules, synthetic turf, T Timpka
Filed under Doctor Football :
Comments (2) :
Jan 9th, 2010
February 5th, 2010 at 6:47 pm
Thanks for the great post! keep it coming
February 5th, 2010 at 11:25 pm
Great post… keep it coming! I only wish there were more websites like this.