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Proprioceptive mechanisms appear to play a role in stabilizing the joints and may serve as a means for interplay between static stabilizers and dynamic muscular restraints. The purpose of our study was to investigate whether or not gymnastic training has any effect on the balance and on proprioception in an ankle, as seen in gymnasts and in nongymnasts. We evaluated the proprioceptive ability of the ankle using four different tests (a one-leg-standing test, a single-limb-hopping test, an active angle-reproduction test, and a passive angle-reproduction test). Proprioception of the ankle was measured in 40 subjects who were assigned to two experimental groups. Group 1 (n: 20) were healthy control subjects, and group 2 (n: 20) were teenaged female gymnasts. The sense of position of a joint was actively measured using a Cybex NORMTM isokinetic dynamometer and measured passively with a proprioception-testing device. A Mann-Whitney U test was used to compare mean values of the gymnasts to the controls. Results revealed statistically significant differences (p<0.05) between two groups. We found no statistically significant differences between the dominant and nondominant ankle in volunteers or in gymnasts, in all tests. The results of this study suggest that gymnastic training has a positive influence on sense of position of the ankle joint and on balance, in addition to increasing muscle tone.

Proprioceptive mechanisms appear to play a role in stabilizing the glenohumeral joint and may serve as a means for interplay between the static stabilizers and the dynamic muscle restraints. The aim of this study was to investigate proprioception of the joint in healthy and surgically repaired shoulders. Shoulder proprioception was measured in 44 subjects who were assigned to two experimental groups: group 1, healthy subjects (n = 24); and group 2, patients who have undergone surgical reconstruction (n = 20). Joint position sense was measured with a Cybex NORM isokinetic dynamometer. The results revealed no significant differences in proprioception between the dominant and nondominant shoulders in group 1. No significant mean differences were revealed between the surgical and contralateral shoulder in group 2 under any test condition. These results imply that arm dominance in healthy individuals does not influence the proprioceptive sensibility and that reconstructive surgery appears to restore some of these proprioception characteristics.

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