The effect of choice reaction task on impact of single-leg landing

Abstract

This study aimed to investigate attentional demand during single-leg landing after a jump. The experiment was set up as dual-task test. Twelve healthy male participants were instructed to make a two-leg jump with right-leg landing as softly as possible. The flight time of the jump was set to 300ms through sufficient practice. As a cognitive task, the participants were asked to push the right or left custom-made button as soon as a go-signal was presented. The timing when the go-signal presented varied from 0 to 300ms from the take-off. Catch trials in which the go-signal was not presented were randomly inserted. The results showed that the maximum vertical ground reaction force after touchdown was greater under the dual-task condition than in the single-task condition. Increase in the maximum vertical ground reaction force was consistent regardless of the timing of presenting the go-signal, and the same effect was observed in the catch trials. These results indicate that the effect of dual tasking was caused by attentional allocation to the choice reaction time task. Athletes may be exposed a large ground reaction forces during landing while performing cognitive tasks.