Relationship Between Gluteus Medius Muscle Strength, Balance and Jumping Performance in Professional Female Handball Players

Ankara Yildirim Beyazıt University

Status: Completed

Conditions: Balance; Jumping Performance; Handball Players; Gluteus Medius Muscle Strength

Study type: Observational

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT04563182

2020-244

Details and patient eligibility

About

Background Balance and jumping mechanisms are important to prevent injuries in sports such as handball, which require immediately change of direction, jumping and landing strategy. Strong proximal stability is required for accurate jump performance and stability.

Objective To investigate the relationship between gluteus medius strength and static, dynamic balance, horizontal and vertical jump performance.

Design Prospective field trial study.

Setting: Elite women handball players in Turkish Handball Super League. Patients (or Participants): Forty-two elite women handball players from Turkish Handball Super League were included in this study.

Interventions (or assessment of risk factors) The Lafayette Hand-Held Dynamometer was used to determine the strength of the gluteus medius. Single leg hop (SLH) test was used for horizontal jump and Lafayette Vertimetric device was used for vertical jump (VJ) evaluation. Y Balance Test (YBT) was used for the dynamic balance with direction of anterior, posteriomedial, posteriolateral and Standing Stork Test (SST) with eyes closed for the measurement of static balance.

Main outcome measurements Gluteus medius strength with hand dynamometer compared with YBT, SST, VJ and SLH tests.

Enrollment: 40 patients

Sex: Female

Ages: 18 to 40 years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• age between 18-40 years,
• playing Handball at least for 5 year as a professional player
• currently free of any lower limb injuries within the last three months
• no previous history of injury or surgery that may affect their lower limbs.

Exclusion criteria

• having lower limb injury for more than 1 month;
• having a history of surgery, or chronic and progressive disease in their lower limb
• having scoliosis or any other orthopaedic or neurological problems

Trial design

40 participants in 5 patient groups

Muscle strength

Description:

GMed strength was assessed with the use of a Lafayette Manual Muscle Tester (Lafayette Instruments; Lafayette, Indiana, USA).

Horizontal Jumping Performance

Description:

Lower extremity horizontal jumping was measured using the single leg hop (SLH) test as previously described

Vertical Jumping Performance

Description:

To measure the single-leg vertical jump (SLVJ), the participants stood on the ground with their foot flat distributing their weight evenly on both feet.

Dynamic Balance

Description:

The Y-Balance Test (YBT) was used to dynamic balance

Static Balance

Description:

The Stork balance test (SBT) was used to measure static balance performance