Relationship Between Injury Types and Prevalence with Some Anthropometric Properties of Male Elite Volleyball Players of Iran

The purpose of this study was to determine relationship between prevalence and types of injuries with anthropometric properties of male elite volleyball players of Iran. 91 male volleyball players in 1388 premier volleyball league of Iran (27.53±2.89 years old, 7.88±1.04 year’s volleyball background) participated in this study. To collect data, Australian standard sport injury questionnaire was used and 42 anthropometric parameters were measured. To decrease parameters covered similar measurements, multiple correlations was used, parameters with coefficient more than 0.8 were extracted. Using statistical method of principle component analysis (PCA) on final 17 parameters, 5 main components covering 76% of data variance were extracted. Inside the main components, parameters with coefficients higher than 0.7 including weight, seated height, malleolus width, torso width at umbilicus, torso circumferences at hip, distance between two hands and foot length were used for further analysis. Subjects reported 0.68±0.58 injuries per year and 0.98±0.78 injuries per 1000 hours training. Fingers (22.61%) and chronic tendon injury (25.64%) were reported as the anatomical position with the most prevalence and the most common type of injuries. Multiple regression coefficients showed that weight, seated height, torso width at umbilicus, torso circumferences at hip are effective parameters in injuries prevalence, sprain, dislocation and tendon and muscle chronic injuries. Pearson coefficients showed that there is significant relationship between prevalence and types of injuries with games’ position of male elite volleyball players. According to results, fingers, ankle, knee and shoulder injuries are the highest prevalent injuries among male elite volleyball players. Sprain, dislocation, tendon and muscle chronic injuries, as the highest prevalent types of injuries, have significant relationship with weight, width and circumference of trunk and ratio of seated height to height.