GRIPP

Background: 

Golf is popular worldwide; around 60 million people are playing golf in 206 countries. 
For older middle-aged golfers, it is an essential source of physical activity.  Playing sports for older aged contributes to better health and well-being. However, as in any sport injuries occur.  Golf injuries are most frequently located in the spine, elbow, wrist, hand and shoulder. Golfers who do not perform a warm-up are likelier to report an injury.
Warm-up prevention programs have been proven effective in reducing the risk of injuries in sports like volleyball, handball, and baseball. Golfers believe a warm-up will reduce injuries. However, they don’t know how to perform a warm-up because there is no standardized, evidence-based warm-up intervention program for injury prevention yet.

Because there is no injury prevention program we developed the Golf Related Injury Prevention Program (GRIPP) intervention. 
Therefore, we followed the Knowledge Transfer Schema (KTS) and organized 3 multidisciplinary Knowledge Transfer Groups. Importantly, golfers were actively involved in this process, ensuring the program's practical relevance and potential acceptance. The program was developed for golfers of 45 years and older. The GRIPP program consists of 6 exercises with a maximum total duration of 10 minutes. Golfers are able to perform the warm-up on the tee-box while waiting for tee-time. 
This study primarily aims to assess whether the GRIPP intervention effectively reduces the rates of golf-related injuries (GRI’s) in recreational golfers during 5 months. The hypothesis is that the GRIPP intervention will reduce GRI rates.

Funds and grants: 

This study is partially funded by ZonMw: The Netherlands Organisation for Health Research and Development 

Publications

Gladdines S, von Gerhardt AL, Verhagen E, Beumer A, Eygendaal D; GRIPP 9 study collaborative. The effectiveness of a golf injury prevention program (GRIPP intervention) compared to the usual warm-up in Dutch golfers: protocol design of a randomized controlled trial. BMC Sports Sci Med Rehabil. 2022 Jul 26;14(1):144. doi: 10.1186/s13102-022-00511-4. PMID: 35883102; PMCID: PMC9327285.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35883102/

Gladdines S, Eygendaal D, van Boekel L, Verhagen E, Beumer A. How to optimise the fidelity of exercises in an unsupervised golf injury prevention programme? A pilot study. BMJ Open Sport Exerc Med. 2024 Feb 5;10(1):e001681. doi: 10.1136/bmjsem-2023-001681. PMID: 38347860; PMCID: PMC10860048.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38347860/

Collaboration:

Amphia Hospital, Department of Orthopaedic Surgery,
Dutch Golf Federation 
Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Amsterdam Movement Sciences, Amsterdam UMC, University of Amsterdam
Academic Center for Evidence-Based Sports Medicine (ACES), Amsterdam.
Amsterdam Collaboration on Health and Safety in Sports (ACHSS), AMC/VUmc IOC Research Center.
Department of Public and Occupational Health, Amsterdam Movement Sciences, Amsterdam University Medical Centers, Location VU University Medical Center.