INTRODUCTION: About 25% of the ball/team sports athletes who return to play after an anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury end up with a new, secondary ACL injury. To make return to these sports safer we need more knowledge of injury causation. Also, ACL injuries typically occur during single-leg landings or cutting maneuvers, which is why such movements should be in the center of research attention. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether knee biomechanics during sidestep cutting maneuvers differ between athletes with and without a history of ACL injury. METHODS: 751 female elite handball and football players, 72 of which with a history of ACL injury, performed sport-specific cutting tasks while 3D kinematics and kinetics were measured. We compared seven knee related variables between both the previously injured leg and the uninjured leg of players with an ACL injury history with legs of injury free players. RESULTS: For the previously injured leg, we found that players with an ACL injury history had significantly lower peak knee valgus angles (MD, 1.3°; 95% CI [0.0, 2.6]) and lower valgus angles at initial contact (MD, 1.2°; 95% CI [0.1, 2.3]) as compared to injury free players. Also, they showed significantly lower peak knee flexion moments (MD, 0.31 Nm/kg; 95% CI [0.16, 0.45]), knee abduction moments (MD, 0.27 Nm/kg; 95% CI [0.13, 0.41]) and knee internal rotation moments (MD, 0.06 Nm/kg; 95% CI [0.00, 0.11]). For the non-injured leg and for knee flexion angles, no differences were found. CONCLUSION: 3.7 years after an ACL injury, female elite athletes still, unintentionally or intentionally, unload their previously injured leg. These loading alterations might be part of the explanation for why players with previous ACL injury are at elevated risk of sustaining a new secondary ACL injury.
© Copyright 2022 27th Annual Congress of the European College of Sport Science (ECSS), Sevilla, 30. Aug - 2. Sep 2022. Julkaistu Tekijä Faculty of Sport Science - Universidad Pablo de Olavide. Kaikki oikeudet pidätetään. / Kääntänyt https://www.DeepL.com/Translator