By Jordana Bieze Foster
Real-time biofeedback training can help female athletes reduce knee abduction moments (KAM) during landing, which may in turn reduce risk of anterior cruciate ligament injury, according to preliminary research from Cincinnati Children’s Hospital.
While performing squat exercises, four female high school soccer players received visual feedback depicting their KAM values relative to a target KAM range. The feedback enabled the athletes to adjust their technique such that the KAM stayed within that target range for 80% of the squat trials.
Following the training, KAM was 33% lower during a drop vertical jump than before the training and maximum knee abduction angle decreased by 31.5%, suggesting carryover of the effects of feedback between tasks.
In separate training trials, the athletes also received visual kinematic feedback regarding knee abduction angle, but that technique only helped the athletes hit the target KAM range 29.3% of the time. After training, KAM and peak knee abduction angle during a drop vertical jump were not significantly different from baseline.
The findings were presented in August at the ASB meeting.
Source:
Ford KR, DiCesare C, Myer GD, Hewett TE. Real-time biofeedback for ACL injury prevention. Presented at the 36th annual meeting of the American Society of Biomechanics; Gainesville, FL; August 2012.
Just wondering why you want to de-emphasize HIP abduction in the prevention of ACL injuries. I was under the impression that hip internal rotation needed to be decreased to minimize risk of ACL injury.