NEUROMUSCULAR TRAINING EFFECT ON KNEE ROTATION DURING DROP LANDING IN WOMEN

Introduction: The high rate of injuries of the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) without involving contact in women is a source of curiosity among scientists, because drop landing assessments may suggest a predisposition to the risk of this injury. In these sense, several training protocols have been used as an intervention and achieved mixed results in the change of this risk factor. Objective: The aim of this project was to evaluate the possible changes of rotation knee in single-leg drop landing after the intervention of a neuromuscular training program. Methods: The study included 18 women aged between 18 and 51 years, who were divided into two groups: neuromuscular training group (NTG) (n= 11) and control group (CG) (n= 7). In addition, they did not have musculoskeletal injury or pain in the lower limbs. Each participant completed five valid single-leg drop landings from a platform of 40 cm. The motion capture process was carried out with 12 infrared cameras of the OptiTrack (TM) system to obtain three-dimensional coordinates of markers fixed in the anatomical points of interest. The local coordinate systems of the thigh and leg were defined by means of the respective markers set in the anatomical points. Thus, the knee rotation angles in the sagittal, frontal, and transverse planes were calculated through the sequence of Euler angles and the angular velocities were calculated using the formulations of quaternions. Results: The results showed an increase in the knee rotation speed after the neuromuscular training. Conclusion: We conclude that neuromuscular training resulted in faster rotation at the knee in the 40 milliseconds succeeding the single-leg landing.