Return to Sport, Reinjury Rate, and Tissue Changes after Muscle Strain Injury: A Narrative Review.

Abstract

A major challenge in sports medicine is to facilitate the fastest possible recovery from injury without increasing the risk of subsequent reruptures, and thus effective rehabilitation programs should balance between these two factors. The present review focuses on examining the role of different resistance training interventions in rehabilitation of acute muscle strain in the time frame from injury until return to sport (RTS), the rate of reinjuries, and tissue changes after injury. Randomized, controlled trials dealing with a component of resistance training in their rehabilitation protocols, as well as observational studies on tissue morphology and tissue changes as a result to muscle strain injuries, were included. The mean time for RTS varied from 15 to 86 days between studies (n = 8), and the mean rate of reinjury spanned from 0 to 70%. Eccentric resistance training at long muscle length and rapid introduction to rehabilitation postinjury led to significant improvement regarding RTS, and core-stabilizing exercises as well as implementing an individualized algorithm for rehabilitation seem to reduce the risk of reinjury in studies with a high rerupture rate. Independent of the rehabilitation program, structural changes appear to persist for a long time, if not permanently, after a strain injury.