The Sports Research and Mediacoach area of LaLiga together with the Rey Juan Carlos and Miguel Hernández de Elche Universities have achieved first position in the prestigious Cajastur Foundation National Sports Medicine Research Awards awarded by the University of Oviedo with genetic research that has discovered the correlation of a specific gene, ACTN3, known as the “speed gene”, with an increased risk of muscle injury and decreased physical performance.
The work entitled: “Effect of the speed gene in professional soccer. The ACTN3 XX genotype negatively affects running performance and increases the incidence of muscle injuries in LaLiga footballers”has as its main author Dr. Juan Del Coso Garrigós, from the Rey Juan Carlos University, and is part of a group of investigations that seek to shed light on such a multidisciplinary and complex topic as muscle injuries in soccer. This issue has been the focus of the work of the LaLiga Sports Research area in recent years.
Physical performance data was obtained through Mediacoach, the performance analysis and video analysis platform developed by LaLiga and that the organization puts at the service of the 42 clubs. For his part, The medical services of eleven LaLiga Santander clubs collaborated to obtain the genetic samples: DNA samples were extracted from the players of these clubs to determine their genotype in what is known colloquially as the speed gene, together with the analysis of the injury record, also provided by the medical services. The players, treated anonymously, were classified into three groups according to their genotype in the ACTN3 gene: those who have the XX genotype and do not produce the α-actinin-3 protein, a fundamental protein in muscle fiber, those who do produce the protein and who have the genotypeRR and those that produce the protein in an intermediate amount because they have the RX genotype.
“This work provides new information on the role that genetics has for physical performance and the probability of injury in professional soccer players. Although we have analyzed only one gene of the 30,000 that we have in our DNA, we have been able to determine that a small variation in DNA can cause some footballers to have a lower physical performance during matches and a greater risk of muscle injury. This does not mean that footballers with the XX genotype in the speed gene have a worse condition to be elite footballers than RR or RX., because on the other hand they can have an exceptional technical or tactical quality that is not associated with this gene. For us, The findings of the work indicate that genetic information may be essential for the individualization of training and injury prevention programs, so that XX players can be specifically trained. In addition, it is important to indicate that genetic information is one more piece of information to know the potential of a professional player, and should not be used as a talent selection tool, especially in soccer, such a complex sport and in which so many factors determine whether a player can reach the level to be a professional”, says Dr. Juan Del Coso, a researcher at the Center for Sports Studies of the URJC.
“This finding is of great importance so that club professionals can carry out specific prevention programs and special plans to improve physical performance. in those players who have this genetic mutation. Besides, allows clubs and their coaching staffs to carry out à la carte recovery programs and match rotations to minimize the risk of injury”, affirms Ricardo Resta, director of the Mediacoach area of LaLiga and one of the participating researchers.
A priority: player health protection
For more than four years, the group of researchers led by Dr. Del Coso and in which Dr. Victor Moreno also participates on a stable basis – Perez (Miguel Hernández University), Ricardo Resta Serra and Dr. Roberto López del Campo (both from the LaLiga Sports Research Area), Two more investigations on injury prevention have already been published in high-impact international journals.
The first, “Influence of the Weekly and Match-play Load on Muscle Injury in Professional Football Players” concluded that players who sustained a muscle injury during a match had accumulated a high-intensity workload in the previous weeks. and in the five minutes before being injured. As a result of this discovery, Mediacoach implemented an alert system in its Live Pro tool to notify the exact minute of the game in which each player reached these risk levels. The second, “Reduce Match Exposure in the Previous 2 Matches Accounts for Hamstring Muscle Injury Incidence in Professional Football Players” showed that players who come off the bench have a higher risk of injury relative to those who play the entire game.
The three investigations show the importance of the scientific approach when treating and interpreting the data. From LaLiga, in collaboration with the universities and the medical services of the clubsspecial emphasis has been placed in recent years on working hand in hand with scientists and universities to promote the development of knowledge and new technological tools that help club professionals optimize decision-making with the aim of reducing as much as possible the risk of players getting injured.
In this line of innovation, last day the Video Review System was released in all the stadiums of the competition. This service is part of the Mediacoach suite of solutions and has been developed thanks to the Beyond Stats project powered by Microsoft. It is a system that allows the monitoring of everything that happens in the field through the management and control of the television signal with a double function: technical-tactical and medical. So, the system helps medical services to carry out an effective intervention in the event of a possible injury (especially in the case of contusions) thanks to the real-time review from different angles of the play and positioningwhich helps determine a better diagnosis and treatment.