Absolute And Relative Joint Contributions To Landing In High- Compared To Low-Arched Athletes

Abstract

Foot structure has been implicated in lower extremity injury. Research has shown that athletes with aberrant foot structure exhibit unique biomechanics during running and landing tasks. While foot function has been suggested to underlie distinct injury patterns in high- (HA) compared to low-arched (LA) athletes, no previous research has addressed the contribution of individual joints to load attenuation in a landing task. PURPOSE: Therefore, the purpose of this study was to quantify differences in individual joint contributions to total negative work during a landing task in high- compared to low-arched athletes. METHODS: Ten HA and 10 LA female athletes performed five landing trials from a height of 0.3 meters while three-dimensional kinematics and ground reaction forces were collected using an 8-camera motion capture system (240 Hz, ViconPEAK) and a force platform (960 Hz, AMTI), respectively. Lower extremity joint work values were calculated using Visual 3D (C-Motion, Inc.). Relative contributions of each joint to negative joint work was calculated as a percentage of the individual joint work relative to total joint work. Independent samples t-tests were used to compare relative joint work values for the lower extremity. RESULTS: HA athletes exhibited significantly smaller total negative joint work compared to LA athletes (p=0.016; HA: 1.79±0.43; LA: 2.16±0.26). HA athletes had significantly smaller knee (p=0.046; HA: 0.98±0.36; LA: 1.22±0.23) and hip joint work values (p=0.019; HA: 0.22±0.18; LA: 0.39±0.16). HA and LA athletes had similar ankle joint work values (p=0.252; HA: 0.59±0.16; LA: 0.55±0.12). When comparing relative joint work, HA athletes exhibited greater relative ankle contributions to total negative work than LA athletes (p = 0.032; HA: 35.1±25.7%; LA: 25.7±6.6%). No differences existed between HA and LA athletes at the knee (p=0.255; HA: 53.5±11.2%; LA: 56.3±6.3%). HA athletes had a smaller hip contribution to total negative work than the LA athletes during landing (p = 0.049; 11.4±8.8%; LA: 18.0±7.6%). CONCLUSIONS: These findings indicate that HA and LA athletes use unique biomechanical strategies to attenuate load during a landing task and may provide insight into the distinct injury patterns experienced by these two groups.