The preventive effect of an ankle brace, especially designed for soccer players, on acute ankle injuries in girls amateur soccer players.

An ankle sprain, mainly of the inversion type, is one of the most common injuries in soccer and often results in time-loss from play. This disabling injury can cause residual complaints such as instability, chronic ankle pain and functional limitation over time and has a high proportion of recurrences.

A number of measures reduce the incidence of ankle sprains in soccer players. These include neuromuscular (proprioceptive and coordination) training and/ or the use of an external support to decrease inversion and eversion range of movement of the ankle joint (like taping or a semi-rigid braces). The key element in the success of a preventive measure is compliance. We know that this element is higher for the use of ankle braces than the performance of neuromuscular training. Dutch soccer players do not often wear braces during their sport. A national survey in 2007 among Dutch soccer players reported that this is the result of a supposed lack of good fit of the available braces and pinching of the feet in the soccer shoes due to the thickness of the braces and the fear of reduced ball control. Using an ankle brace specifically developed for and in cooperation with soccer players to prevent (recurrent) ankle sprains (PSB Sports Kicx), may very likely contribute to the removal of the above-suggested barriers to wear braces during soccer play. We hypothesize that this brace will reduce the incidence of ankle sprain injuries among amateur girls’ soccer players by 50%.

We hypothesize that a semi-rigid ankle brace especially designed for soccer players, wil reduce the incidence of ankle sprain injuries among amateur girls soccer players by 50%.

Weekly registration starts 05-09-2016

Intervention starts 31-10-2016

Follow-up ends 29-05-2017

Baseline measurements (e.g. length, weight, single leg balance tests, Beighton score) and questionnaires (e.g. player characteristics and injury history) will be performed < 31-10-2016.



Weekly registration by SMS or e-mail, containing questions about ankle complaints, exposure hours, other injuries, compliance to intervention.

In case of ankle injury: information regarding diagnosis, etiology, injury date, contact vs non-contact, recovery date, medical treatment, absenteeism from school-/ work).

The intervention in this study is the Push Sports Kicx ankle brace, a semi-rigid ankle brace especially designed for soccer players. This brace will be used on both sides during all soccer-related activities (training and match).