Effects of fatigue on knee kinematics in health women

Abstract

Anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury is one of the most common injuries in athletes, with predominance in females. These injuries usually occur during activities of the great demand for the knee joint, and poor neuromuscular control may represent a risk factor. Muscular fatigue occurs during strenuous physical activity and may result in decreased performance and kinematics changes that predispose to ACL injury, especially in the end of a sporting activity, when fatigue is most evident. Thus, the aim of this study is to evaluate the effect of a general neuromuscular fatigue protocol in the knee kinematic parameters of healthy women. Twenty healthy female subjects, aged between 18 and 30 years old will be recruited to participate in this study. For a kinematic analysis of the knee joint of the dominant leg, the subjects will perform a single-leg drop jump from 30cm height. Will be considerate for analyses the angles of flexion/extension and adduction/abduction of the knee, before and after the application of a general neuromuscular fatigue protocol. For the statistical analysis will be verified normality and homoscedasticity of the data and for comparison of knee kinematic variables before and after the fatigue, the protocol will be applied paired test t-Student for parametric variables or Wilcoxon test for nonparametric variables. Will be considered a level of significance of 5%.(AU)