Author:

Keywords:

Science & Technology, Life Sciences & Biomedicine, Sport Sciences, FATIGUE, NEUROMUSCULAR CONTROL, MATCH SIMULATION, LANDING PATTERNS, INJURY RISK, LIGAMENT INJURY RISK, LOWER-EXTREMITY BIOMECHANICS, ISOLATED HAMSTRINGS FATIGUE, LOWER-LIMB, ACL INJURY, JOINT COORDINATION, PERCEIVED EXERTION, TRUNK KINEMATICS, TRAINING LOAD, KNEE, Athletic Injuries, Biomechanical Phenomena, Female, Humans, Lower Extremity, Male, Movement, Muscle Fatigue, Muscle, Skeletal, Plyometric Exercise, Sports, Task Performance and Analysis, Young Adult, 1106 Human Movement and Sports Sciences, 1116 Medical Physiology, 1117 Public Health and Health Services, 3202 Clinical sciences, 3208 Medical physiology, 4207 Sports science and exercise

Abstract:

INTRODUCTION: Growing evidence exists that match-related fatigue induces biomechanical alterations that might increase lower extremity injury risk. Fatigue studies often use match simulation protocols that expose all subjects to a standardized demand (e.g., a fixed distance/time). In those studies, the induced level of fatigue depends then on subjects' fatigability. If between-subject variability in fatigability is high, this might confound overall fatigue effects. Therefore, the first aim was to investigate whether a fatigue protocol with fixed demand causes alterations in landing patterns. Second, we assessed the relationship between fatigability and landing patterns as we hypothesized that athletes with high fatigability would show movement patterns that involve greater injury risk. METHODS: Eighteen athletes performed three different unilateral landing tasks before and after a match simulation protocol while muscle activation (vastus medialis, vastus lateralis, hamstrings medialis, hamstrings lateralis, gastrocnemius medialis, gastrocnemius lateralis, and gluteus medius) and landing kinematics and kinetics of the hip, knee, and ankle joint were recorded. Furthermore, RPE was administered to measure fatigability. ANOVA analyses were conducted to investigate fatigue effects on landing patterns. Correlation analyses assessed the relationship between fatigability (postfatigue RPE) and landing patterns. RESULTS: The ANOVA analyses did not show any overall postfatigue alterations in landing patterns. However, correlation analyses showed an association between fatigability and landing patterns. Athletes who had higher RPE scores showed smaller postfatigue knee flexion angles and smaller pre- and postfatigue knee abduction angles across different landing tasks. CONCLUSION: The fixed demand protocol did not cause overall alterations in landing patterns. When fatigability was taken into account, high fatigability was related with less optimal landing patterns.