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Open research questions in Sports injuries and prevention

885 gap statements mined from Sports injuries and prevention papers in our 7.9M-paper local library, which holds 3,416 papers on the topic — drawn mostly from each paper's own stated research gap, future-work, challenge and limitation notes, and its abstract. The ones listed below are a selection still marked open; each names the study that raised it, with a DOI link where the paper has one.

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What the literature leaves open

  • Strategies such as progressive workload increases, enhanced preseason conditioning, or closer monitoring of athlete readiness could be explored as part of injury prevention programs. Additionally, due to a lack of data on athletes without injuries across seasons, zero-count observations were assumed to be independent, affecting 1541 observations with zero injuries over the 8 seasons.

    Injury and illness in non-football collegiate athletics: a single university, 8-year descriptive retrospective analysis · 2026 · DOI

  • In addition to the standard protocol, as described in the AMPHYS protocol, one could consider adding a cartilage-sensitive sequence, for example the water-selective cartilage sequence (WATS). The WATS sequence especially may improve visualization of physeal morphology and cartilage abnormalities (Fig. 2C).

    Imaging findings of overuse wrist injuries in young artistic gymnasts · 2026 · DOI

  • While a recent systematic review recommended an increased commitment to the use of the PHAT and LEFS in those undergoing proximal hamstring repair, as well as isokinetic strength testing, to the best of the authors’ knowledge minimal clinically important differences (MCIDs) have not been reported for these PROMs in this cohort.

    Pre-operative activity level and a sport or recreation injury mechanism are associated with 2-year clinical outcome after proximal hamstring tendon repair · 2026 · DOI

  • Although some relationships between force-time metrics and AMSKI risk align with known injury mechanisms, other conflicting results highlight the need for further research before recommending AMSKI risk metrics for practical use.

    Sex-Specific Patterns of Force Plate-Derived Predictors for Vertical Jump Performance and Algorithmic Musculoskeletal Injury Risk in College Athletes · 2026 · DOI

  • Future research should consider implementing sham interventions for the control group to better differentiate between mechanical SMR effects and general expectancy effects. A significant limitation that must be addressed is the baseline age imbalance between the experimental groups.

    Chronic Self-Myofascial Release in Road Cyclists: Effects on Cardiorespiratory Capacity, Metabolism, and Mechanical Power · 2026 · DOI

  • Evidence supporting anchoring effects is lacking and inconsistent; as such, the efficacy of anchoring strategies in enhancing force modulation is currently inconclusive.

    Accuracy of Voluntary Force Modulation During the Isometric Mid-Thigh Pull · 2026 · DOI

  • The first limitation of this study is the low and heterogeneous sample size, as discussed in the main publication. As this is an innovative approach to the use of anthropometric variables in decision-making protocols to prevent injuries, there is scarce evidence to compare results in this or other sports.

    The Role of Anthropometry in Decision-Making for Injury Prevention Among Elite Flag Football Players · 2026 · DOI

  • Despite a growing body of literature on Para Athletics, longitudinal and intervention-based evidence remains scarce for several impairment classes, particularly athletes with visual impairments (F11–F13).

    Combining Multisensory Cueing and Velocity-Based Training to Enhance Shot Put Performance in an F12 Para-Athlete: A Case Report · 2026 · DOI

  • The present study has several methodological limitations that should be considered when interpreting the findings: (1) Although the instrument was developed based on previous epidemiological studies, expert review, and pilot testing, formal psychometric validation was not performed (which may have introduced measurement error or affected the accuracy and consistency of some self-reported variables).

    Injury Patterns in Portuguese Under-23 and Senior Rink Hockey Athletes: A Retrospective Cross-Sectional Study · 2026 · DOI

  • While calf strains are common among National Basketball Association (NBA) athletes, their role as a precursor to Achilles rupture remains poorly understood.

    Prior Calf Strain as a Risk Factor for Achilles Tendon Rupture in National Basketball Association Players: A Retrospective Analysis · 2026 · DOI

  • Despite its rising popularity, there is limited data regarding the distribution, onset, and mechanism of injuries sustained by GFF players over the course of a season.

    A Description of Injuries Sustained in Interscholastic Girls Flag Football · 2026 · DOI

  • Epidemiologic studies have characterized the common injury patterns occurring in adults, but there is limited research characterizing national trends in rock climbing-related injuries between AAP age categories of late childhood (ages 5-12 years) and adolescence (ages 13-17 years) and between sexes within these age groups.

    Scaling The Data: Trends in Childhood and Adolescent Rock Climbing Injuries from the PHIS Database · 2026 · DOI

  • Few studies have examined how systems perform when athletes move between environments (from indoors to outdoors or from land to water), creating uncertainty for sports requiring such transitions. Furthermore, environmental transition capabilities remain underexplored. Additionally, long-term reliability assessments are lacking across all technologies.

    Motion Capture Technologies for Athletic Performance Enhancement and Injury Risk Assessment: A Review for Multi-Sport Organizations · 2025 · DOI

  • Future research should focus on integrating simulation-derived and IMU-based empirical data to validate and extend the framework toward real-world, sensor-driven applications in sports medicine.

    Interpretable Machine Learning on Simulation-Derived Biomechanical Features for Hamstrings–Quadriceps Imbalance Detection in Running · 2025 · DOI

  • Lastly, external factors such as biomechanics, coaching quality, and training surfaces were not fully explored. In addition, since this was an exploratory study that invited all licensed players aged 15–20 years, we did not control for the level of play.

    Training Load, Injuries, and Well-Being in Youth Padel Players: A Cross-Sectional Study · 2025 · DOI

  • This study has several limitations that may affect the generalizability of the findings. Additionally, the study did not account for potential confounding variables such as individual flexibility levels or prior training history, which could influence the effective‐ ness of stretching protocols.

    Superiority of Dynamic Stretching over Static and Combined Stretching Protocols for Repeated Sprint Performance in Elite Male Soccer Players · 2025 · DOI

  • Further, while the sessions were supervised by a research team member who intervened with corrections as necessary, it is possible that the athletes still missed repetitions or poorly performed certain exercises, making exercise execution a possible limitation of this study. First, this study did not account for training volume or the style of training completed by the athletes.

    A Single-Team Case Study of Corrective Exercises for Upper-Extremity Injuries and Movement Dysfunction in Collegiate Swimmers · 2025 · DOI

  • Previous research has reported higher rates of both injury and illness among Paralympic athletes compared with Olympic athletes during the Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games, but no studies have directly compared injury and illness incidence between Olympic and Paralympic athletes competing in a Summer Games.

    Comparative Analysis of Injury and Illness Rates Among Team USA Athletes at the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games · 2025 · DOI

  • A practical approach starts with radiographs, followed by MRI when radiographs are inconclusive or when soft tissue, physeal, or stress-related injury is suspected.

    Imaging findings of overuse wrist injuries in young artistic gymnasts · 2026 · DOI

  • Wearable sensor technologies have developed rapidly and offer unique opportunities to quantify biomechanical, neuromuscular, physiological, and biochemical aspects of sports-related injuries.

    Emergency Clinical Decision for Sports Injury Management: A Wearable Sensor-Driven Framework from Training to Rehabilitation · 2026 · DOI

  • Comparable levels of accuracy have been rarely reported in applied sports science, where machine learning models for injury prediction often show modest AUC values, typically between 0.

    Interpretable Machine Learning on Simulation-Derived Biomechanical Features for Hamstrings–Quadriceps Imbalance Detection in Running · 2025 · DOI

  • Currently, shin guards remain the only mandatory gear, while other devices play important but varied roles: facial masks enable safe return-to-play after midface fractures and are increasingly accepted; headgear is mainly used in youth football, though evidence for concussion prevention remains inconclusive; and orthoses and braces are widely applied in clinical practice despite heterogeneous scientific support.

    Protective Equipment in Football: A Review of History, Evolution, Materials, and Contemporary Use · 2025 · DOI

  • Despite optimal management, including diagnosis and treatments, the cause of hamstring muscle injuries is not well defined.

    Porcine Collagen Injection Therapy Affects Proximal Hamstring Tendinopathy in Athletes by Reducing Time to Return to Sport · 2025 · DOI

  • Current injury prediction frameworks overlook the cumulative nature of injury risk - Existing machine learning-based approaches fail to capture how injury probability increases with exposure duration during training or matches - The need for a framework that integrates survival-based machine learning, probability calibration, and actionable decision…

    Injury prediction in elite women’s football: an integrative machine learning-based decision-support framework · 2026 · DOI

  • While certain components, such as the Title, Introduction, and Discussion, were generally well reported, critical…

    Reporting Quality of Meta-Analyses of Randomized Controlled Trials on Knee and Ankle Injury Prevention Programs in Football Players Using PRISMA 2020 · 2025 · DOI

Most-cited papers in Sports injuries and prevention

Most recent work

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Open questions raised by papers listed on this page include: (1) Due to a lack of data on athletes without injuries across seasons, zero-count observations were assumed to be independent, affecting 1541 observations with zero injuries over the 8 seasons (“Injury and illness in non-football collegiate athletics: a single university,…”, 2026); (2) Future research should consider implementing sham interventions for the control group to better differentiate between mechanical SMR effects and general expectancy effects (“Chronic Self-Myofascial Release in Road Cyclists: Effects on Cardiorespiratory…”, 2026); (3) Evidence supporting anchoring effects is lacking and inconsistent; as such, the efficacy of anchoring strategies in enhancing force modulation is currently inconclusive (“Accuracy of Voluntary Force Modulation During the Isometric Mid-Thigh Pull”, 2026); (4) As this is an innovative approach to the use of anthropometric variables in decision-making protocols to prevent injuries, there is scarce evidence to compare results in this or other sports (“The Role of Anthropometry in Decision-Making for Injury Prevention Among Elite…”, 2026); (5) Despite a growing body of literature on Para Athletics, longitudinal and intervention-based evidence remains scarce for several impairment classes, particularly athletes with visual impairments (F11–F13) (“Combining Multisensory Cueing and Velocity-Based Training to Enhance Shot Put…”, 2026). 885 gap statements have been mined from Sports injuries and prevention papers in our 7.9M-paper local library, which holds 3,416 papers on the topic; the gaps come from whichever of those papers state one. They are mostly the research gaps the authors state and the papers' abstracts, plus future-work, limitations and challenges passages. The ones listed below are a selection still marked open; each names the study that raised it, with a DOI link where the paper has one, so you can read the original claim in context.

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