Towards critical benchmarks for Return-To-Sport following injury rehabilitation at collegiate level in Teachers Colleges of Zimbabwe

Abstract

This study examined the critical benchmarks impacting on players’ return-to-sport following injury sustenance in selected Tertiary Institutions of Zimbabwe. The study was a descriptive, prospective cohort design anchored on quantitative approach. Its population was 453 with a sample of 228 participants that comprised coaches, fitness trainers, physiotherapists, psychologists, and handball players drawn from 10 selected Teachers Colleges in Zimbabwe. Male and female handball players were from original collegiate handball teams for the entire period of study. Questionnaires were used as data collection tools. All data were statistically performed using IBM SPSS Version 23 and presented on a multi-part graph and table. Emerging findings revealed absence of quality return-to-sport training modes for re-enacting players’ musculoskeletal deficits. Quality social support synergies for full resurgence of return-to-sport players’ physiological and socio-psychological tenets lacked among health service providers. The study recommends that co-opting multi-social-support synergies during rehabilitation and return-to-sport episodes could significantly address players’ socio-psychological and physiological tenets. Health service providers with amplified skill sets should fully re-orient athletes’ fractured return-to-sport hope pathways. Further appropriately designed, quality contemporary evidence-based multi-modal training batteries should resonate critical evaluative ‘viaducts’ and ‘mainstay’ of rehabilitation and return-to-sport transitions for enhancement of players’ socio-psychological and mitochondrial tenacity levels. Scientific monitoring approaches could further substantiate reduction of inherent injury tendencies through HIFT regimens.