Effects of foot preference on postural control in soccer players

Abstract

A soccer player often uses the dominant leg during activities and the non-dominant leg is used to support body weight. This may have different effects on the postural control between the dominant and non-dominant legs in soccer players. Detection of a possible asymmetry in postural control is important because a bilateral difference may be a contributing factor to injury. This study aimed to compare the postural control performances of right- and left-footed amateur soccer players; secondly, it aimed to address the postural control differences between the dominant and non-dominant legs of soccer players. Twenty-four healthy male soccer players were divided into two different groups (right foot dominant = 12, left foot dominant = 12). Dynamic postural control scores of soccer players in dominant and non-dominant single-stances were measured under two sensory conditions (eyes open and eyes closed) using the Biodex Balance System. In the comparison of two independent groups according to the normality distribution, the t-test and Mann-Whitney U test were used for independent samples. The t-test for dependent samples and the Wilcoxon test were used to compare dependent groups. The results of the study; whether the players are right-footed or left-footed in both eye-open and eye-closed conditions does not affect their postural control performance; showed that the postural control performance of the dominant leg was higher than the non-dominant leg in the eye-open condition of all soccer players regardless of right and left legs. Therefore, it was determined that leg dominance exhibited a symmetrical performance in terms of postural control.