Relationship between vertical stiffness and soft-tissue injuries in professional Australian football.

Soft-tissue injuries are common in Australian football. Recently, literature has identified non-modifiable and modifiable risk factors, including vertical stiffness (K). However, limitations regarding measurement frequency and duration exist; thus, further information is required about the role of K as a modifiable risk factor for injury.

Relationship between leg stiffness and lower body injuries in professional Australian football.

Leg stiffness is a modifiable mechanical property that may be related to soft tissue injury risk. The purpose of this study was to examine mean leg stiffness and bilateral differences in leg stiffness across an entire professional Australian Football League (AFL) season, and determine whether this parameter was related to the incidence of lower body soft tissue injury. The stiffness of the left and right legs of 39 professional AFL players (age 24.

Effect of the HamSprint Drills training programme on lower limb neuromuscular control in Australian football players.

This study examined the effect of the HamSprint Drills training programme and conventional football practice warm-up on lower limb neuromuscular control. The purpose-built active movement extent discrimination apparatus was used to assess lower limb neuromuscular control in 29 footballers from one professional Australian Football League club. Without vision of the contact point, participants performed 40 backward swing movement trials with each leg and made a judgment of the magnitude of each movement.

The effect of neoprene shorts on leg proprioception in Australian football players.

Our purpose was to assess the effect of wearing close-fitting neoprene shorts on swinging leg movement discrimination (MD) scores in elite level Australian Football players. Twenty players had their swinging leg MD assessed using the active movement extent discrimination apparatus (AMEDA), once wearing close-fitting neoprene and once wearing loose-fitting running shorts. Subjects were randomly allocated to one of the shorts conditions prior to repeating the test in the other condition.