Abstract
(1) Background: Understanding children’s motor patterns in landing is important not only for sport performance but also to prevent lower limb injury. The purpose of this study was to analyze children’s lower limb joint angles and impact force during single-leg landings (SLL) in different types of jumping sports using statistical parametric mapping (SPM). (2) Methods: Thirty children (53.33% girls, M = 10.16 years-old, standard deviation (SD) = 1.52) divided into three groups (gymnastics, volleyball and control) participated in the study. The participants were asked to do SLLs with the dominant lower limb (barefoot) on a force plate from a height of 25 cm. The vertical ground reaction force (GRF) and lower limb joint angles were assessed. SPM{F} one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and SPM{t} unpaired t-tests were performed during the landing and stability phases. (3) Results: A significant main effect was found in the landing phase of jumping sport practice in GRF and joint angles. During the stability phase, this effect was exhibited in ankle and knee joint angles. (4) Conclusions: Evidence was obtained of the influence of practicing a specific sport in childhood. Child volleyball players performed SLL with lower impact force and higher knee flexion than child gymnasts. Training in specific jumping sports (i.e., volleyball and gymnastics) could affect the individual capacity to adapt SLL execution.
Highlights
Physical activity and exercise are important for both health and growth [1,2], and it is associated with motor skill development [2,3]
Pairwise comparisons showed that the impact and rebounds were higher in the gymnastics than in the volleyball and control groups
A lower impact force was found in volleyball than in the control group
Summary
Physical activity and exercise are important for both health and growth [1,2], and it is associated with motor skill development [2,3]. Sport and/or exercise fosters the underlying mechanisms of children’s and adolescents’ motor competence (e.g., coordination patterns or stretch-shortening cycle) [2,4,5] and facilitates better regulation and reduction of impact forces during practice [6]. In this regard, the acquisition of new motor patterns as a result of physical activity and exercise depends on training and on other factors such as age [6], level of performance [5], or the type of physical activity and sport practiced [7]. Public Health 2020, 17, 6414; doi:10.3390/ijerph17176414 www.mdpi.com/journal/ijerph
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