Abstract
(1) Ultimate frisbee involves frequent cutting motions, which have a high risk of anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury, especially for female players. This study investigated the in-game cutting maneuvers performed by female ultimate frisbee athletes to understand the movements that could put them at risk of ACL injury. (2) Lower-body kinematics and movement around the field were reconstructed from wearable lower-body inertial sensors worn by 12 female players during 16 league-sanctioned ultimate frisbee games. (3) 422 cuts were identified from speed and direction change criteria. The mean cut had approach speed of 3.4 m/s, approach acceleration of 3.1 m/s2, cut angle of 94 degrees, and ground-contact knee flexion of 34 degrees. Shallow cuts from 30 to 90 degrees were most common. Speed and acceleration did not change based on cut angle. Players on more competitive teams had higher speed and acceleration and reduced knee flexion during cutting. (4) This study demonstrates that a lower-body set of wearable inertial sensors can successfully track an athlete’s motion during real games, producing detailed biomechanical metrics of behavior and performance. These in-game measurements can be used to specify controlled cutting movements in future laboratory studies. These studies should prioritize higher-level players since they may exhibit higher-risk cutting behavior.
Highlights
Ultimate frisbee (UF) is a popular sport played by three million people in the United States each year [1]
(4) This study demonstrates that a lower-body set of wearable inertial sensors can successfully track an athlete’s motion during real games, producing detailed biomechanical metrics of behavior and performance
Current wearable movement sensors provide accurate enough estimates of lower body kinematics to characterize important aspects of athletic maneuvers such as cutting, while being unobtrusive enough to wear during competition in some sports
Summary
Ultimate frisbee (UF) is a popular sport played by three million people in the United States each year [1]. Injuries from UF tend to occur on the lower limbs of athletes with 53% of frequent players experiencing knee injuries [4]. These injuries are often sustained by women who are injured twice as often as men in collegiate club UF [3]. Some of this discrepancy may be due to women having a higher risk of anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury in general: female athletes of other sports have 2–8 times higher rates of ACL injury than their male counterparts [5,6,7,8]. In a study of men’s semi-professional UF, ligament sprains in the knee were the fifth highest cause of injury, making up
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