Association of quadriceps and hamstring muscle strengths with low back pain due to non-contact injuries among fast bowlers aged between 15 – 19 years in division 1 boys’ schools in Colombo

Abstract

Abstract. The purpose of this study was to investigate how quadriceps and hamstring muscle strengths associate with low back pain (LBP) due to non-contact injuries among 102 fast bowlers aged between 15-19 years at Colombo division 1 boys’ schools in Sri Lanka. Eighty-five fast bowlers were fulfilled the requirements and an interviewer administered questionnaire was used to gather the demographic data regarding general characteristics and the severity of low back pain respectively. Bowlers were prospectively monitored over the competition period of 2019 cricket season and the quadriceps and hamstring muscle strengths were recorded. SPSS software was used to analyse the data. Thirty-seven (43.5%) of the subjects were presented with LBP due to non-contact injuries. Reduction of quadriceps strength of dominant side leg and hamstring strength of non-dominant side leg were found to be significantly associated with LBP (P<0.05). Conflicting results were found for the association of quadriceps strength of non-dominant side leg and hamstring strength of dominant side leg with LBP (P>0.05). There was a significant difference for the quadriceps strength of dominant side leg and hamstring strength of non-dominant side leg between the fast bowlers with and without lower back pain. The results concluded that reduced quadriceps muscle strength of dominant side leg and reduced hamstring muscle strength of non-dominant side leg have an important role in predisposing a fast bowler to have an increase in low back pain which occurred due to non-contact injuries.