ORIGINAL ARTICLE  EXERCISE PHYSIOLOGY AND BIOMECHANICS 

The Journal of Sports Medicine and Physical Fitness 2019 June;59(6):916-24

DOI: 10.23736/S0022-4707.18.08837-0

Copyright © 2018 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

lingua: Inglese

Effects of a functional lower extremity fatigue protocol and a 5-minute recovery period on the performance of a single leg hop test for distance in healthy participants

George A. KOUMANTAKIS ^{1, 2} ✉, Dionysis LOUNTZIS ², George PAPATSIMPAS ², Orestis KENTRITAS ², Xanthi KATSIKI ², Panagiotis MICHALEAS ²

¹ Department of Physiotherapy, 401 General Army Hospital of Athens, Athens, Greece; ² School of Physiotherapy, Health Sciences Faculty, Metropolitan College, Athens, Greece, affiliated institution with Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh, UK

BACKGROUND: Hop tests evaluate lower extremity sport-specific performance after various interventions and as predictors of injury. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of a functional low-cost fatigue protocol and a 5-minute post fatigue recovery on the single-leg hop test for distance (SLHD) in healthy young adult college students, including a between-gender comparison.
METHODS: Sixty young healthy adults (37 male-23 female), without any musculosketal complaints or previous injury or surgery in any of their lower limbs, participated in the experiment. Three practice trials were initially performed, followed by three pre-fatigue formal trials of the SLHD. After the fatigue protocol, three more trials were conducted prior to a 5-min recovery period, followed by another 3 trials. The reliability of the non-fatigued SLHD was also tested in a random sample of the cohort.
RESULTS: Test-retest reliability was high (ICC2,3=0.91, SEM=7.9 cm). Mean decrease in performance between pre-fatigue and post-fatigue values was statistically significant for the whole group (-6.4%) and the male (-7.1%), however not the female participants. Mean increase between post-fatigue and 5-minute recovery trials, however, was significant for all (14.7%), as well as for the male (17.5%) and female (10.2%) participants. The 5-minute recovery trials were significantly increased even compared to the pre-fatigue trials for the whole group (6.6%) and the male participants (8.5%).
CONCLUSIONS: The particular fatigue protocol moderately affected SLHD values, mostly for the male participants of the population recruited. Mean increase between prefatigue and 5-minute postfatigue recovery data can be accounted mainly by post-activation potentiation.

KEY WORDS: Muscle fatigue; Quadriceps; Knee; Sports