External rotation elastic bands at the lower limb decrease rearfoot eversion during walking: a preliminary proof of concept.

Background: Reducing rearfoot eversion is a commonly desired effect in clinical practice to prevent or treat musculoskeletal dysfunction. Interventions that pull the lower limb into external rotation may reduce rearfoot eversion.

Objective: This study investigated whether the use of external rotation elastic bands, of different levels of stiffness, will decrease rearfoot eversion during walking.

Clinical measures of hip and foot-ankle mechanics as predictors of rearfoot motion and posture.

Health professionals are frequently interested in predicting rearfoot pronation during weight-bearing activities. Previous inconsistent results regarding the ability of clinical measures to predict rearfoot kinematics may have been influenced by the neglect of possible combined effects of alignment and mobility at the foot-ankle complex and by the disregard of possible influences of hip mobility on foot kinematics. The present study tested whether using a measure that combines frontal-plane bone alignment and mobility at the foot-ankle complex and a measure of hip internal rotation mobility predicts rearfoot kinematics, in walking and upright stance.

Relationship between joint passive stiffness and hip lateral rotator concentric torque.

Background: Adequate passive stiffness of the hip joint can prevent the occurrence of excessive transverse plane lower limb movement during functional activities. Strength training of the hip lateral rotator muscles can be used to increase the stiffness of this joint. However, the relationship between hip joint passive stiffness and muscle strength remains undocumented in the literature.

Validity and reliability of clinical tests for assessing passive ankle stiffness.

Background: The presence of inadequate levels of passive ankle stiffness have been associated with the occurrence of movement disorders, the development of pathological conditions and the reduction in the performance of functional activities such as walking, running and jumping. Therefore, clinical tests to evaluate ankle stiffness may be useful for the physical therapy assessment.

Objectives: To investigate the concurrent validity and the intra- and inter-examiner reliability of clinical measures developed to assess passive stiffness of the ankle joint during dorsiflexion movement.