Background/Purpose Unpredictable landing and cutting movements are inherent characteristics within sport, with knee joint flexion (KJF) and time to peak knee joint flexion (TKJF) often associated with increased risk of lower extremity injury. To create an effective injury prevention protocol, it is sensible to determine the magnitude of difference between anticipated and unanticipated movement conditions to introduce intervention techniques that assimilate as close as possible the indeterminate movement conditions observed in practice and competition. The purpose of this study was to compare kinematic parameters of the knee during anticipated and unanticipated landing conditions among adolescent female basketball athletes performing a maximal vertical jump effort.
Method Six adolescent female basketball players (13.8 ± 0.4yr.; 62.7 ± 17.87kg; 1.66 ± 0.08m) performed a maximal vertical jump and were instructed to land and immediately sprint under both anticipated (A) and unanticipated (U) directions upon impact. Mean peak sagittal plane KJF and TKJF were collected with 3-dimensional kinematic techniques. A paired sample t-test was conducted for each dependent variable to determine if significant differences existed between the anticipated and unanticipated landing condition.
Analysis/Results Mean peak values for KJF (A=70.9 ± 10.2º; U=55.6 ± 12.7º) and TKJF (A=0.2 ± 0.06s; U= 0.17 ± 0.05s) were significantly different (p<0.05) when comparing anticipated to unanticipated landing conditions, thus implying the use of different kinematic strategies with unpredictable situations.
Conclusions Evaluating the disparity among anticipated and unanticipated landings are necessary to ensure injury intervention protocols provide adequate variability and unpredictability to attenuate factors associated with lower extremity injury among adolescent female athletes.