The Effect of Eight Weeks of Injury Prevention Program on Performance and Musculoskeletal Pain in Imam Ali Military University Students

The purpose of the current study is investigation the effect of eight weeks injury prevention program on performance and and musculoskeletal pain in imam Ali military university students.
The present study is quasi experimental and the research design is of two groups with pre-test and post-test processes in both groups and interventions on the experimental group. For this research, 80 Imam Ali military university students were selected purposefully based on inclusion and exclusion criteria. Then subjects were randomly divided into two groups included 40 subjects in the experimental and 40 subjects in the control group. Functional movement screen (FMS) test was used to evaluate the performance of the subject and the Nordic questionnaire was used to assess the musculoskeletal pain. Then the subject in the experimental group performed an injury prevention program for 8 weeks and 3 sessions per week (24 sessions). And during this period, subject in the control group performed their daily programs. At the end of the exercise, the post-test similar to the pre-test was taken from both groups. Kolmogorov-Smirnov statistical method was used to check the normality of the data and paired t-test and analysis of covariance were used to evaluate the performance test scores and musculoskeletal pain of the two groups before and after the intervention.
The results of paired t-test showed that in all tests of FMS except shoulder flexibility, a significant difference was found between pre-test and post-test only in the experimental group (P<0.05). Also, the results of analysis of covariance showed an improvement in the performance of the subjects in all tests except shoulder flexibility, in the posttest between the two groups (P<0.05). Also, the results of Nordic questionnaire showed that the disorders in the lumbar region are 65 present and in the knee region are 53 present. The number of people with mild lumbar injury decreased in the experimental group from 18 to 9 injuries and the number of people with severe lumbar injuries decreased from 6 to 2 injuries which showed a significant difference before and after eight weeks of intervention (P<0.05) but this difference was not significant in the control group (P>0/05). Also, the number of people with mild knee injuries in the experimental group decreased from 12 to 4 injuries and the number of people with severe knee injuries decreased from 7 to 2 injuries witch showed a significant decrease before and after eight weeks of intervention (P<0/05) but this difference was not significant in the control group (P>0/05).
The present study showed that the injury prevention program has an effect on performance and musculoskeletal pain in knee and lower back of students of Imam Ali Military University and instructors and professors of military universities can use this injury prevention program to reduce pain and improve performance.