The association between GPS-derived external workload metrics and soleus muscle injuries in professional football (soccer) players
Luca Benedetti, Matthew Buckthorpe, Stefano Di Paolo, Francesco Della Villa, Gianni Nanni · St Mary's University Repository (St Mary's University Twickenham London) · 2026
Purpose: To investigate the association between external GPS workload metrics and soleus muscle injuries (SMI) in elite professional football.
Methods: A retrospective cohort study was conducted across seven consecutive seasons (2017/2018–2023/2024) in a single Italian Serie A first-team squad. One hundred and sixty player-season observations were included (25.4±3.2 years; goalkeepers excluded), with 4,704 match-hours and 31,686 training-hours recorded. SMIs were defined as time-loss soleus muscle complaints (excluding contact injuries) diagnosed by the club medical staff in accordance with FIFA consensus definitions and classified as structural or non-structural. External loads were quantified using 50 Hz GPS (Stats Perform) and included total distance, high-intensity distance (≥16 km·h⁻¹), sprint distance (≥25 km·h⁻¹), and acceleration/deceleration distances (≥+/-2.0 m·s⁻²). For injured players, workloads were averaged across the 7-day and 28-day window preceding injury (excluding injury day) and compared to control periods of equal duration. Between-player comparisons contrasted injured players’ injury periods with control periods in non-injured players.
Results: Twenty-nine SMIs (52% were non-structural) occurred in 17 players. Injured players were older than non-injured players (29.2±3.9 vs 25.0±3.2 years; p=0.041). Most injuries occurred in training (83%); incidence was 0.76/1000 training-hours and 1.06/1000 match-hours; injury burden was 10.86 days/1000 hours. No within-player differences were observed between injury and control weeks for any workload metric (p>0.05). Over 28 days, injured players demonstrated lower sprint distance versus their control month (−37%; p=0.014; d=−0.71). For between-player analyses, deceleration distance was higher in the 7-day injury period versus non-injured controls (+17%; p=0.041; d=0.44), with no 28-day differences.
Conclusion: SMIs imposed a substantial burden in elite football and were not preceded by acute workload spikes relative to players’ own control periods.
Findings: suggest SMIs may occur within a context of sustained high training volumes, with modest elevations in short-term deceleration exposure and reduced longer-term sprint distance observed prior to injury.