Mario Bizzini

• PhD, MSc, PT
• Research Associate at Schulthess Klinik, Zürich

Adoptant une approche bio-psycho-sociale dans le champ de la kinésithérapie du sport, ce volume est découpé en 6 grandes parties et 25 chapitres : définitions de l’activité physique, le sport et la kinésithérapie, les bases fondamentales dans la prise en charge du sportif, des pathologies sportives du membre supérieur, du membre inférieur et du rac...

Background: The forward lunge is a closed-chain weight-bearing multi-joint exercise simulating the activities of daily living, such as walking or stair climbing, which mainly activates hip, knee, and ankle musculature and is also used by athletes and other individuals to train lower-extremity musculature. Objectives: The purpose of this study is to...

The 11+ is a structured warm-up program designed to prevent injuries in soccer players, but has proven efficacy in many populations, settings and sports. It consists of 15 exercises that target the most common injury sites, such as the knee, ankle, and groin. However, the implementation and adherence of the 11+ remain suboptimal, and recent compell...

Background Hip and groin problems are common among team-sport athletes. However, few studies have been conducted in female athletes that have used the Doha Agreement classification system to categorize these problems. Purpose The purpose of this study was to examine the preseason point prevalence of hip and groin problems in elite female team-spor...

The Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) 11+ and 11+ Kids injury prevention programs have shown success in reducing overall injury risk in soccer players, yet their specific impact on head and neck injuries remains inadequately explored. Purpose : To evaluate the effectiveness of FIFA 11+ and 11+ Kids injury prevention programs...

Objectives To investigate if the 11+ injury prevention programme decreases the risk of hamstring injury and improves recovery time and determine whether compliance with the 11+ affects hamstring injury risk. Methods This study is a secondary analysis from a prospective cluster randomised controlled trial that included 65 National Collegiate Athlet...

Background Hip and groin (HAG) problems are common among team-sport athletes. However, very few studies have focused in female athletes and used the clinical entity approach to describe the origin of these problems. Objective (1) To examine the preseason prevalence of HAG problems in elite female team-sport athletes. (2) To classify the subjects w...

Background Hip and groin problems are common in soccer. However, most studies have focused on male players and primarily used a time-loss injury definition. Despite the increasing popularity of women’s soccer, data on female players remain limited. Objective To investigate the prevalence, incidence, and potential risk factors of hip and groin prob...

Background Non-arthritic intra-articular hip pain, caused by various pathologies, leads to impairments in range of motion, strength, balance, and neuromuscular control. Although functional performance tests offer valuable insights in evaluating these patients, no clear consensus exists regarding the optimal tests for this patient population. Purpo...

Independent physiotherapy at home is a crucial element of rehabilitative care for a wide range of conditions as it constitutes a large portion of the overall therapy dose. However, up to 80% of individuals who are prescribed at-home physiotherapy do not consistently adhere to their treatment schedule, resulting in poor treatment outcomes. This is l...

Background The 11+ injury prevention program (IPP) has been shown to decrease injury rates. However, few studies have investigated compliance and its overall relationship to team performance. Hypothesis/Purpose To examine if level of compliance while implementing the 11+ would impact team performance outcomes (wins, losses and ties). The authors h...

Objectives: To examine hip muscle strength deficits in patients with femoroacetabular impingent syndrome (FAIS), with special emphasis on potential sex- and comparison-related (between-subject vs within-subject) differences. Design: Cross-sectional comparative study. Participants: Forty FAIS patients (20 women), 40 healthy controls (20 women)...

The Academy of Orthopaedic Physical Therapy and the American Academy of Sports Physical Therapy have an ongoing effort to create evidence-based clinical practice guidelines (CPGs) for orthopaedic and sports physical therapy management and prevention of musculoskeletal impairments described in the World Health Organization's International Classifica...

Objectives This project aims to assess opinions, attitudes, knowledge, beliefs, practices and perceived barriers and facilitators of injury prevention (IP) strategies in Swiss basketball teams. Methods An online survey was sent to athletes, coaches and medical staff of the three best basketball leagues in Switzerland. The survey was subdivided in...

Background: The Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) 11+ Kids is an exercise-based injury prevention program developed by an international group of experts to prevent injuries among child soccer players. Hypothesis: It was hypothesized that the FIFA 11+ Kids program would be more effective than performing a typical warm-up re...

Background : The side effects of the 11+ on performance have not been generally reviewed. The objective of this study was to synthesize the literature on the effects of the 11+ on players’ performance. Methods : Five online databases (PubMed, Scopus, ScienceDirect, Springer, and Google Scholar) were searched (April 2006 to March 2022) using predef...

Objective To provide consensus on how to plan, organize and implement exercise-based injury prevention program (IPP) in sports. Design Delphi. Setting LimeSurvey platform. Participants Experienced sports physical therapists from the International Federation of Sports Physical Therapy member countries. Main outcome measures Factors related to sp...

Objectives To investigate the mid-term outcomes of exercise therapy in patients with femoroacetabular impingement syndrome (FAIS). Design Follow-up study. Setting Clinical setting. Participants Twenty-six patients with FAIS who completed a 12-week semi-standardized, progressive exercise therapy program. Main outcome measures At a mid-term follo...

We compared the effectiveness of a home-based neuromuscular electrical stimulation (NMES) program applied to the quadriceps of the nonoperative side against sham-NMES as a complement to standard rehabilitation on knee extensor neuromuscular function in patients following anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) reconstruction. Twenty-four patients complete...

Synopsis: There is an absence of high-quality evidence to support rehabilitation and return-to-sport decisions following shoulder injuries in athletes. The Athlete Shoulder Consensus Group was convened to lead a consensus process that aimed to produce best-practice guidance for clinicians, athletes, and coaches for managing shoulder injuries in sp...

Physiotherapy, as a profession, is always evolving and developing its knowledge and skill base, and in turn specialist areas of practice have developed. Physiotherapists and particularly Sports and Exercise Physiotherapy specialists require in-depth knowledge, skills and competence specific to this context and area of practice. Sport physiotherapis...

Declaration of interests: none Word count: 3255 Word count-abstract: 250 Number of tables: 1 Number of figures: 1 Background: The performance side of the 11+ program has not been generally reviewed. Objective: To synthesize the literature on the effects of the 11+ on players' performance Setting: Systematic review Search procedure: Five online data...

Background: Exercise-based injury prevention programs for athletes have demonstrated consistent results in reducing the risk of lower limb injuries. Compliance is essential for program effectiveness and may be facilitated when these programs demonstrate positive effects on athletic performance. Hypothesis/purpose: To summarize the findings of cu...

Objective Dysfunction of the autonomic cardiovascular system after a concussion is known to cause exercise intolerance due to symptoms exacerbation. The aim of this study was to compare athletes with symptoms of a sport-related concussion and healthy controls with regard to their heart rate during a graded exercise test and their heart rate recover...

Background Lower extremity injury prevention programs are effective in team sport athletes. Objective This study identifies barriers to and facilitators for an injury prevention program in professional male ice hockey teams among players and staff members. Design Cross-sectional survey. Setting Professional male ice hockey teams. Participants E...

Background: Soccer is one of the most popular sports worldwide. Goalkeepers are more likely to injure their upper limbs, particularly their shoulders, than outfield players. To reduce upper extremity injuries, the FIFA 11+ Shoulder Injury Prevention Program (FIFA 11+S) was developed. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to assess the effectivenes...

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1093/jhps/hnaa043.].

Context: Injury prevention programs for the lower extremities are effective in team-sport athletes. Objective: To identify barriers and facilitators among professional ice hockey players and staff members for adhering to an injury prevention program. Design: Cross-sectional survey. Setting and participants: A questionnaire about barriers and...

Objective The Fédération International de Football Association (FIFA) 11+ Referees Injury Prevention Program (FIFA 11+ Referees Program) is a structured warm‐up program specially designed to prevent injuries in soccer referees. However, its effectiveness has yet to be fully documented in the literature. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to...

Objective: The Fédération International de Football Association (FIFA) 11+ Referees Injury Prevention Program (FIFA 11+ Referees Program) is a structured warm-up program specially designed to prevent injuries in soccer referees. However, its effectiveness has yet to be fully documented in the literature. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to...

The 2019 International Society of Hip Preservation (ISHA) physiotherapy agreement on femoroacetabular impingement syndrome (FAIS) was intended to build an international physiotherapy consensus on the assessment, non-surgical physiotherapy treatment, pre-/post-operative management, and return to sport decisions for those patients with FAIS. The pane...

Background Ice hockey injury patterns in Europe were last evaluated in the 1990s. Purpose The aim of this study was to assess the frequency, type, location, and incidence of traumatic injuries, as well as the prevalence and relative effect of overuse injuries in professional male ice hockey players. Study Design Descriptive epidemiology study. M...

Football is a global game which is constantly evolving, showing substantial increases in physical and technical demands. Nutrition plays a valuable integrated role in optimising performance of elite players during training and match-play, and maintaining their overall health throughout the season. An evidence-based approach to nutrition emphasising...

Epidemiological studies of injury in elite and recreational golfers have lacked consistency in methods and definitions employed and this limits comparison of results across studies. In their sports-generic statement, the Consensus Group recruited by the IOC (2020) called for sport-specific consensus statements. On invitation by International Golf F...

Research question: The recent COVID-19 pandemic resulted in a total lockdown of the major football leagues, aiming to prevent the threat of an uncontrolled spread of infections, and forcing the players and match officials to home-based physical training. Differently from players, no health and physical fitness maintenance guidelines were published...

Background A precise and consistent definition of return to sport (RTS) after anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury is lacking, and there is controversy surrounding the process of returning patients to sport and their previous activity level. Purpose The aim of the Panther Symposium ACL Injury Return to Sport Consensus Group was to provide a cle...

Objective To report the effectiveness of physiotherapist-led interventions in improving pain and function in young and middle-aged adults with hip-related pain. Design Systematic review and meta-analysis. Data sources A comprehensive, reproducible search strategy was performed on five databases in May 2019. Reference lists and grey literature wer...

Objectives To provide reference values and examine the influence of hip/groin pain on hip adductor and abductor strength in professional male ice hockey players, by using a straightforward 5-min procedure. Design Cross-sectional study. Setting On-field assessment of hip/groin muscle strength with dynamometry, together with the concomitant level o...

Hip-related pain is a well-recognised complaint among active young and middle-aged active adults. People experiencing hip-related disorders commonly report pain and reduced functional capacity, including difficulties in executing activities of daily living. Patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) are essential to accurately examine and compare th...

Objectives: To investigate sex-specific differences in hip muscle strength asymmetries, and associations between hip abductor and flexor strength asymmetries, hip morphology and symptoms in patients with femoroacetabular impingement syndrome (FAIS). Design: Cross-sectional study. Setting: Clinical setting. Participants: Thirty-four patients...

There is no agreement on how to classify, define or diagnose hip-related pain—a common cause of hip and groin pain in young and middle-aged active adults. This complicates the work of clinicians and researchers. The International Hip-related Pain Research Network consensus group met in November 2018 in Zurich aiming to make recommendations on how t...

Hip-related pain can significantly impact quality of life, function, work capacity, physical activity and family life. Standardised measurement methods of physical capacity of relevance to young and middle-aged active adults with hip-related pain are currently not established. The aim of this consensus paper was to provide recommendations for clini...

Background: The appropriate detection and therapy of concussion symptoms are of great importance to avoid long-term impairment and absence from pre-concussive activities, such as sport, school or work. Post-traumatic headache and dizziness are known as risk factors of persistent symptoms after a concussion. Dizziness has even been classified as a p...

The 1st International Hip-related Pain Research Network meeting discussed four prioritised themes concerning hip-related pain in young to middle-aged adults: (1) diagnosis and classification of hip-related pain; (2) patient-reported outcome measures for hip-related pain; (3) measurement of physical capacity for hip-related pain; (4) physiotherapist...

Quadriceps neuromuscular function remains impaired in the short- and long-term following knee arthroscopy for meniscal surgery and/or anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) reconstruction. The aim of this study was to compare quadriceps neuromuscular impairments in patients following meniscal surgery with and without ACL reconstruction. Thirty patients w...

Objective To investigate the responsiveness to exercise therapy of patients with femoroacetabular impingement syndrome (FAIS), and to investigate differences in hip function, strength, and morphology between responders versus nonresponders. Methods Patients with FAIS underwent 12 weeks of semi‐standardized and progressive exercise therapy. A good...

Coaches are essential to participant safety, particularly by implementing injury prevention programs. The evidence-based injury prevention programs developed by sports scientists will not prevent injuries in real-world sports settings if they are not properly implemented. This study investigated the knowledge and use of the highly efficacious 11+ i...

Background To assess the effects of the injury prevention programme ‘11+ Kids’ on reducing severe injuries in 7 to 13 year old football (soccer) players. Methods Football clubs (under-9, under-11 and under-13 age groups) from the Czech Republic, Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland were cluster-randomised (clubs) into an intervention (INT) and...

Objective: Hamstring and patellar tendon autografts are the most frequently-used graft types for anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) reconstruction, with no consensus on their respective effect on thigh muscle strength. The objective of this study was to re-examine isokinetic knee extensor and flexor strength before and after ACL reconstruction with...

Objective To identify which exercise combinations are most effective as part of a lower extremity injury prevention programme for team-sport athletes. Design Umbrella review. Data sources A comprehensive literature search was performed in PubMed, Scopus, Cochrane Library and PEDro databases. Studies published between January 2000 and March 2017 w...

The Academy of Orthopaedic Physical Therapy and the American Academy of Sports Physical Therapy have an ongoing effort to create evidence-based clinical practice guidelines (CPGs) for orthopaedic and sports physical therapy management and prevention of musculoskeletal impairments described in the World Health Organization's International Classifica...

During the last 30 years we have witnessed significant progress in the field of football injury prevention. Large-scale randomised controlled trials (RCTs) have shown that exercise-based prevention programmes can substantially reduce the incidence of football injuries. But while it is commonly assumed that the positive results of these RCTs will au...

Objective: The objective of this study was to assess the efficacy of a newly developed warm-up programme ('11+ Kids') regarding its potential to reduce injuries in children's football. Methods: Children's football teams (under 9 years, under 11 years, and under 13 years age groups) from Switzerland, Germany, the Czech Republic and the Netherland...

Purpose: The 11+ injury prevention program has been shown to decrease injury rate. However, few studies have investigated compliance and if it is correlated to time loss. The purpose of this study was to (1) analyze how differences in compliance may impact injury rate and (2) if compliance may impact time loss due to injury. Methods: This study...

In the last 10 years, injury prevention has received a lot of attention in sports medicine and by sports governing bodies: as an example, the protection of the athlete’s health has recently become one of declared objectives of the International Olympic Committee.

Study Design Cross-sectional study. Objectives To evaluate intrarater and interrater agreement among physical therapists with different clinical experience in performing a visual rating of movement-pattern quality of patients with femoroacetabular impingement (FAI) syndrome using a semi-quantitative scale. Background Visual rating of movement pat...

Background and aim Understanding the barriers to programme use is important to facilitate implementation of injury prevention programmes in real-word settings. This study investigated the barriers to coaches of adolescent female soccer teams, in Victoria, Australia, implementing the evidence-based FIFA 11+ injury prevention programme. Methods Conc...

Castagna, C, Bizzini, M, D'Ottavio, S, and Araújo Póvoas, SC. Gender differences in aerobic fitness in top-class soccer referees. J Strength Cond Res XX(X): 000-000, 2017-The aim of this study was to assess the aerobic-fitness differences between male and female top-class soccer field referees (FRs). This with the purpose to provide cutoff values u...

Castagna, C, Bizzini, M, Araújo Póvoas, SC, Schenk, K, Büsser, G, and D'Ottavio, S. Aerobic fitness in top-class soccer referees. J Strength Cond Res XX(X): 000-000, 2017-The aim of this study was to examine the aerobic fitness status of top-class male soccer officials using a cross-sectional design and known population group constructs. Fifty-two...

Referees are an integral part of soccer and their performance is fundamental for regular match flow, irrespective of the competition level or age classes. So far, scientific interest was mainly limited to aspects of exercise physiology and match performance of soccer referees, whereas recommendations for nutrition were adopted from active professio...

Zusammenfassung OPTIMALE BEHANDLUNG Nach einem schweren Check persistieren bei einem Eishockeyspieler Kopfschmerzen, Schwindel, Licht- und Lärmempfindlichkeit – trotz Aufenthalt im Krankenhaus und vierwöchiger Trainingspause. Die bleibenden Symptome fordern eine spezifische und multidisziplinäre Abklärung sowie eine gezielte und differenzierte Trai...

Zusammenfassung DIAGNOSTIK UND THERAPIE Gehirnerschütterungen im Sport sind in der letzten Zeit häufig in den Medien und Fachzeitschriften diskutiert worden. In den USA haben die Schadenersatzklagen von ehemaligen American-Football-Spielern gegen die NFL und von ehemaligen Eishockeyspielern gegen die NHL sowie der Kinofilm „Erschütternde Wahrheit“...

Objective Aim of this study was to evaluate the flexion-adduction-internal rotation (FADIR) test accuracy for screening cam and pincer morphology in youth male ice hockey players without diagnosed hip disorders. Design Cross-sectional study. Methods Seventy-four ice hockey players with a mean age of 16 years (range: 13 to 20 years) were assessed...

Objective Vertigo, dizziness and visual problems are among the main symptoms of a prolong course after concussion. Adequate diagnostic tools are rare. The computerized sensory organization test (SOT) differentiates the sensory integration between somatosensory, vision, vestibular and visual preference. This analysis may help to create an individual...

Objective Apart from headache dizziness, vertigo or visual problems are common symptoms after a head trauma. Making an adequate diagnose of the symptoms remains challenging and only a few laboratory tests exist. The computerised sensory organisation test (SOT) differentiates the sensory integration between somatosensory, vision, vestibular and visu...

Background The FIFA 11+ injury prevention program has been shown to decrease the risk of soccer injuries in men and women. The program has also been shown to decrease time loss resulting from injury. However, previous studies have not specifically investigated how the program might impact the rate of anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury in male...

Objectives: To describe the Return to competition after Achilles Tendon rupture (ATR) in an elite soccer player. Design: Case report. Setting: Return to sport (RTS) of a professional soccer player who suffered an ATR during a match. The RTS phase started 15 weeks after surgery and specific on-field activities were gradually introduced. Criteri...