Pascal Edouard

• Professor
• Medical Doctor at Jean Monnet University

Background: Hamstring muscle injury (HMI) is the most common injury in sports that require sprints and accelerations. Different HMI subtypes have been described according to the muscle, location, tissue, and severity of the injury. It is of interest to determine whether these subtypes are related to a particular clinical injury mechanism. Hypothe...

Purpose To investigate the effects of an 8-week “periodized high-load” forefoot strengthening protocol on athlete’s metatarsophalangeal joints (MTPj) flexion torque, MTPj flexors volume, sprint acceleration, cutting, and jumping overall performance and kinetics. Methods Twenty-height highly-trained athletes were randomized into a TRAINING or contr...

Background Having the overall goal to help countries/teams in the preparation of their national medical teams for international athletics championships, we aimed to describe the composition of national medical teams, including gender distribution, and to explore its potential association with team performance, during European Athletics championship...

Introduction Soft tissue vibrations (STV) have been extensively researched for their effects on muscle fatigue and damage, but their influence during running remains unclear. As compression garments are known to lower STV, they have shown benefits on acute neuromuscular responses to downhill running. However, an in-depth analysis of changes in STV...

Human activities affect the planet by altering natural cycles. They contribute to climate change and pollution, posing challenges to ecosystems, biodiversity, human well-being and health. There is a need to consider Planetary Health, which is described as a solutions-oriented, transdisciplinary field and social movement focused on analysing and add...

The primary aim is to assess the impact of a multidomain intervention that integrates education, exercise, psychological techniques and machine learning feedback on the duration athletes remain free from injury complaints leading to participation restriction (ICPR) during a 20-week summer competitive athletics season. The secondary aims are to asse...

Objective To analyse the association between the level of use of injury risk estimation feedback (I-REF) provided to athletes and the injury burden during an athletics season. Method We conducted a prospective cohort study over a 38-week follow-up period on athletes competing at the French Federation of Athletics. Athletes completed daily question...

Objectives The primary objective of this study was to analyze the correlation between the pain experienced at the time of a hamstring muscle injury and the hyperintense T2 weighted volume of the lesion measured on MRI. The secondary objectives were to analyze the differences in this pain with the lesion grade and the hamstring muscle head involved....

Purpose To investigate the effects of an 8-week “periodized high-load” forefoot strengthening protocol on athlete’s metatarsophalangeal joints (MTPj) flexion torque, MTPj flexors volume, sprint acceleration, cutting, and jumping overall performance and kinetics. Methods Twenty-height highly-trained athletes were randomized into a TRAINING or contr...

Objective To analyse associations between feel-like temperatures measured with the universal thermal climate index (UTCI) and injury rates during international athletic championships. Methods During 10 international outdoor athletic championships from 2007 to 2022, in-competition injuries were collected by medical teams and local organising commit...

Objective To investigate the feasibility, perceived relevance and usefulness of providing injury and illness prevention information through infographics to athletes and medical teams before and during an international athletics championship, and its potential impact on injury and illness risk during the same championship. Methods We conducted a pr...

Despite exercise‐based injury prevention programs (EIPPs) being widely researched and used, several randomized controlled trials (RCTs) have failed to show their protective effect on injury risk. This is potentially due to underappreciating the EIPP dose–response relationship, by not controlling the analysis for the injuries sustained during the ea...

Background Athletics (track and field) athletes are prone to develop bone stress injuries (BSIs) but epidemiological data on BSIs from top-level sports events are scarce. Objective To describe the incidence and characteristics of BSIs during 24 international athletics championships held from 2007 to 2023. Methods BSI-related data were prospective...

Purpose : This study investigated the test–retest reliability and usefulness of the foot–ankle rebound-jump test (FARJT) for measuring foot–ankle reactive strength metrics in athletes. Methods : Thirty-six highly trained, healthy athletes (5 female; 21.5 [3.9] y; 1.80 [0.10] m; 72.7 [10.4] kg) performed 8 repeated bilateral vertical foot–ankle rebo...

Problem: We aimed to explore the potential association between sprint running horizontal force production capacities (the theoretical maximum horizontal force that the lower limbs can produce at zero velocity: FH0, and the theoretical maximum velocity until which they can produce force (velocity at zero force): v0 ) and occurrence of lower limb inj...

Objective: In Athletics (Track and Field), athletes can be affected by injuries, especially in their quest for top performance. Therefore, we aim to provide an overview of the current knowledge about the problem of injuries in Athletics. Main findings: It is necessary to maintain a clear definition of “injury” when stakeholders in Athletics discuss...

Overuse injuries, which have a high prevalence in sport, are suggested to result in different affective responses in comparison to traumatic injuries. Affects may also reciprocally act as risk factors for overuse injury. The aim of this study was to examine the associations between overuse injury and affects within a longitudinal follow‐up design....

Background: The aim of this study was to analyze muscle injuries and their related risk factors during the Athletics events of the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games including the differences in muscle injury rates between heats and finals. Methods: We included and analyzed in this study muscle injuries diagnosed by either magnetic resonance imaging, ultr...

Objective To explore how sports injury epidemiological outcomes (i.e., prevalence, average prevalence, incidence, burden, and time to first injury) vary depending on the response rates to a weekly online self‐reported questionnaire for athletes. Methods Weekly information on athletics injuries and exposure from 391 athletics (track and field) athl...

Background Elite athletics stakeholders (athletes, coaches, health professionals) must contend with injuries. Injury risk reduction measures can mitigate and reduce the injury risk in athletics. The development of artificial intelligence and machine learning techniques may enable measuring an individual athlete’s own risk of injury occurrence and c...

Background Psychological processes have been associated with the risk of sports injury. However, different psychological processes can be related to different injury characteristics based on their modes of onset, severity or number. Objective To cluster injury characteristics and identify the links with psychological processes in elite athletes pr...

Background Women’s Artistic Gymnastics is a sport well known for requiring a heavy and exigent training load from the younger age to reach a high level of performance. This also is associated to an injury risk. Epidemiological studies are thus needed to improve injury prevention strategies. Objective To determine the injury epidemiology in French...

Objective To compare the perception towards injury risk reduction approach between athletes who have already experienced an injury and those who have not. Methods We conducted a cross-sectional study using a one-time online survey asking athletics athletes licensed at the French Federation of Athletics ( http://www.athle.fr ) about their perceptio...

Objective To describe the incidence and characteristics of the sports injuries and illnesses that occurred during the 2022 European Championships. Methods We conducted a prospective study on newly incurred injuries and illnesses collected by the national medical teams and the local organising committee physicians using a standardised online report...

Objective To test whether a musculoskeletal multifactorial and individualised hamstring muscle injury (HMI) risk reduction programme could reduce HMI risk in professional football. Methods We conducted a prospective cohort study in Finnish premier football league teams, with the 2019 season used as a control and an intervention conducted in the 20...

Objective To describe the first injury and to investigate whether it plays a role in altering athletics’ sustainable practice. Methods We conducted a cross-sectional study using an exploratory survey on the first injury and its consequences on athletics practice. In 2021, we asked all high-level athletes licensed with the French Federation of Athl...

Objective To investigate if several potential risk factors were associated with time to injury complaints leading to participation restriction in Athletics (ICPR). Methods We performed a secondary analysis of data collected during 39 weeks of the 2017–2018 Athletics season in a cluster-randomised controlled trial (‘PREVATHLE’). Univariate and mult...

Background: Warm-up is commonly performed by track-and-field athletes before performing maximal sprinting activities. Whilst some warm-up strategies may enhance athletes' physical and mental readiness, less is known about the current athletes' behaviors and warm-up practices in track and field. Therefore, this study aimed to identify the warm-up p...

Traumatic muscle injury represents a collection of skeletal muscle pathologies caused by trauma to the muscle tissue and is defined as damage to the muscle tissue that can result in a functional deficit. Traumatic muscle injury can affect people across the lifespan and can result from high stresses and strains to skeletal muscle tissue, oftendue to...

Background Women’s Artistic Gymnastics (WAG) is a sport well known for requiring a heavy and difficult training load from a younger age to reach a high level of performance. This also is associated with an injury risk. Epidemiological studies are thus needed to improve injury prevention strategies. Objective We aimed to determine the injury epidem...

Problem: We aimed to explore the perceptions and behaviours of athletics (track and field) stakeholders towards injury risk reduction. Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional study in athletes, coaches, health professionals and team leaders registered for athletics at the 2022 European Athletics championships in Munich (Germany), using an online qu...

Objective: The aims of this study were (1) to determine the one-year prevalence of injuries and their characteristics and (2) to analyze potential injury risk factors in high-level/national-level women artistic gymnasts. Methods: Competitive women artistic gymnasts training more than 10 h per week in a national training center and a TOP 12 club in...

Elite competitive sport is a team effort. Many stakeholders contribute to the performance of an athlete: the coaching team, the medical team, the administrative leaders,... This can be represented in the form of a strongly connected network, whose balance tends today to be changed with the progressive introduction of artificial intelligence. This p...

Objective: To describe the epidemiology of injury complaints related to the athletics activity in elite athletics (track and field) athletes practicing disciplines with sprints (i.e., sprints, hurdles, combined events, long jump, and triple jump). Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional study on elite sprinting athletes licensed with the French Fed...

INTRODUCTION The development of artificial intelligence and machine learning techniques may enable measuring an individual athlete’s own risk of injury occurrence and can also be used to further investigate the relative importance of risk factors related to sports injuries. In the near future, elite stakeholders (athletes, coaches, health professio...

Despite decades of continued efforts in research and practice, sprint-related hamstring injuries (sHMI) are still an unresolved issue in football 1,2. Although improving hamstring strength (force capacity) has been proposed as an effective solution in some studies, the most recent meta-analyses show that hamstring strength capacity, as assessed and...

Introduction Two-thirds of athletes (65%) have at least one injury complaint leading to participation restriction (ICPR) in athletics (track and field) during one season. The emerging practice of medicine and public health supported by electronic processes and communication in sports medicine represents an opportunity for developing new injury risk...

COVID-19 vaccination raised concerns about its potential effects on physical performance. To assess the impact of COVID-19 vaccination on the perceived change in physical performance, we conducted an online survey among elite athletes from Belgium, Canada, France and Luxembourg, with questions about socio-demographics, COVID-19 vaccination, perceiv...

Objective: To describe the injury and illness complaints of elite athletes during the four weeks before the 2022 European championships in Munich (Germany). Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional study in athletes registered at the 2022 European championships from the 11th to the 21st August 2022, using an online pre-participation health question...

With an increase of 4% each year and a recurrence rate estimated at 30%, sprinting-related hamstring injuries in footballers represent a real challenge for practitioners. It is therefore necessary to better understand certain risk factors in order to propose a rehabilitation more adapted to the real deficits of the athlete performing sprints. The e...