woman and man playing padel

Project: Injuries in Swedish Padel

The purpose of this project is to investigate the injury panorama of acute and overuse injuries in women and men who regularly participate in padel. The intention is to provide insights on injury prevalence, injury location, injury consequences, gender differences and risk factors.

Project information

Project manager
Sofia Ryman Augustsson
Other project members
Fabian Lundin, Aleris Rehab Liljeholmen, Sweden
Participating organizations
Linnaeus University; Aleris Rehab Liljeholmen, Sweden
Cooperation
The project is carried out in collaboration with Associate professor Emma Haglund and Associate professor Charlotte Olsson, Halmstad University
Timetable
Nov 2021–Dec 2026
Research subject
Sport Science (Department of Sport Science, Faculty of Social Sciences)

More about the project

Padel is considered the fastest growing sport in the world, with more than ten million people playing the sport. However, several clinics in Sweden have reported injuries, of both overload and traumatic nature (acute injury), associated with padel. Yet, research is limited in terms of injury panorama in padel. Thus, this project aims to investigate the injury panorama of acute and overuse injuries in women and men who regularly participate in padel.

The project will be conducted as a cohort study in two parts. In the first part, a retrospective survey will be used where the participants are padel players, aged 18–65 with at least six months' experience, at recreational and/or competitive level. Each participant will register any musculoskeletal injury and complaints that have occurred during the last six months, using a web-designed registration form. The players will also provide information about age, gender, number of training hours per week and experience of padel and other training routines. In the next part, injuries will be registered prospectively, during one year, for padel players at the recreational and competition level, who are registered as members of one of Sweden's padel associations.

All players will each week report their training hours and any match play and any injury that have occurred during padel. Details about the nature and mechanism of the injury and diagnosis will also be collected. The injuries will be classified as either traumatic, i.e., the player could define a specific sudden onset of pain with a defined trauma included, or as due to overuse (an injury that gradually has occurred over time). The severity of the injury will be graded by the time of absence from training and match participation.

The information from this project can be valuable in the work of identifying risk factors of padel injury and injury prevention strategies. This in turn might lead to higher sport participation – with accompanying health benefits – throughout life for padel athletes.

The project is part of the research in the research group Fysisk aktivitet, hälsa och idrottsmedicin.

Articles and publications