| Purpose:Anterior cruciate ligament(ACL)injury is one of the most common and costly athletic injuries,which usually occurred during the landing and cutting.Sagittal movement of the lower extremity is the main mechanism for ACL loading,and insufficient knee flexion at contact is the main cause of ACL injury.Adopting landing techniques with greater knee flexion was of great importance for the risk mitigation of ACL injury.In recent years,the kineiso taping(KT),as a therapeutic taping,has been widely applied in sports medicine.However,there are few studies on whether flexible KT can change the lower extremity movement pattern during landing and therefor reduce the ACL injury risks,and no clear conclusions have been drawn.The researches about KT application mechanisms shows that the main fundamental KT mechanisms used in uninjured people include improvement of proprioception and stimulation of cutaneous mechanoreceptors,and the latter is mostly accepted in the literatures.Therefore,considering the extra cutaneous mechanoreceptors stimulation,the KT on the popliteal fossa may induce greater knee flexion during landing.Based on this theory,this study aimed to apply the most common and simplest Ⅰ shape KT on the popliteal fossa and investigate its effects on lower extremity biomechanics during different landing tasks.Methods:Thirty healthy college students(mean ± SD: age,21.86 ± 2.13 years;mass,62.06± 7.38kg;height,171.40 ± 5.73cm)including fifteen males and fifteen females were recruited in this study.Subjects performed single-leg hop(SH)and drop vertical jump(DVJ)before and after the application of popliteal fossa KT.Three dimensional kinematic and kinetic data of the lower extremity were collected using the Vicon motion capture system and Kistler force plates simultaneously.Two-way repeated measure ANOVA was performed to examine the main effects of KT and gender.When there was an interaction effect,a simple main effect test was performed as a post hoc analysis.The significance level was set at 0.05.Results:1)The significant interactions(P < 0.05)between KT and gender were observed in hip and knee flexion at initial contact(IC)during DVJ.Post hoc test indicated that both hip and knee flexion were increased in male and female after KT application,but the effect is more pronounced in male.2)Significant main effects of KT were found for the 200 ms COP,the kinematics and kinetics of hip,knee and ankle joint,and peak v GRF.The 200 ms COP in SH was significantly decreased in post-KT(P < 0.05).Kinematics: Significant increases in hip and knee flexion at IC and the peak hip and knee flexion were found in both DVJ and SH in post-KT(P < 0.05).The peak ankle dorsiflexion in SH was also significantly increased in post-KT(P < 0.05).The ankle plantarflexion at IC in DVJ was significantly decreased in post-KT(P < 0.05).Kinetics: Significant decreases in peak knee extension moment in both SH and DVJ,and the peak knee valgus moment and peak v GRF in DVJ were found in post-KT(P < 0.05).The peak ankle plantarflexion moment in SH was significantly increased in post-KT(P < 0.05).3)Significant main effects of gender were found for the kinematics of the knee and ankle,and the peak v GRF.Compared to male,a significant greater peak knee valgus was found in female in DVJ(P < 0.05),and significant greater ankle plantarflexion at IC was found in female in both DVJ and SH(P < 0.05).The peak v GRF in female was significantly greater than male in DVJ(P < 0.05).Conclusion:1)The popliteal fossa KT could effectively increase the lower extremity flexion during landing,and reduce the ground impact,thereby improve the landing patterns and decrease the risk of ACL injury in landing.2)The popliteal fossa KT could improve the dynamic balance of SH without producing negative influence on the DVJ performance.3)The popliteal fossa KT may be an acceptable intervention to reduce ACL injury risk during landing... |
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