Is stiffness related to athletic groin pain?

Abstract

Athletic groin pain (AGP) is a common injury prevalent in field sports. One biomechanical measure that may be of importance for injury risk is stiffness. To date however, stiffness has not been examined in AGP. The primary aim was to determine whether AGP affects vertical and joint stiffness and if so, whether successful rehabilitation is associated with a change in stiffness. Sixty-five male patients with AGP and fifty male controls were recruited to this study. Assessment included a biomechanical examination of stiffness during a lateral hurdle hop test. Subjects with AGP were tested pre- and post-rehabilitation, while controls were tested once. AGP subjects were cleared for return to play in a median time of 9.14 weeks (5.14-29.0). Stiffness was significantly different at pre-rehabilitation in comparison with controls for four of the ten stiffness values examined: ankle plantar flexor, knee extensor, hip abductor, and vertical stiffness (P < .05, D = 0.36-0.79). Despite clearance for return to play, of these four variables, only hip abductor stiffness changed significantly from pre- to post-rehabilitation (P = .05, D = 0.35) to become non-significantly different to the uninjured group (P = .18, D = 0.26). These findings suggest that hip abductor stiffness may represent a target for AGP rehabilitation. Conversely, given the clearance for return to play, the lower sagittal plane and vertical stiffness in the AGP group in comparison with the uninjured controls likely represents either a compensatory mechanism to reduce the risk of further injury or a consequence of neuromuscular detraining.

The sensitivity of joint kinematics and kinetics to marker placement during a change of direction task

“…While limited in certain aspects, the CGM currently presents a practical, deterministic, extensively validated model that can be easily implemented in routine clinical practice. These factors may explain the continued widespread use of the CGM in contemporary biomechanical research (Cortes, Onate, and van Lunen 2011;Gore et al 2018;Lee, Chow, and Tillman 2014;B. Marshall et al 2015;McLean, Huang, and Van Den Bogert 2005;Pollard, Sigward, and Powers 2007a;Sigward and Powers 2007).…”

Objective classification and scoring of movement deficiencies in patients with anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction

“…Further, the manner in which the data driven framework approached the engineering feature was based on no input of expert knowledge (e.g. complexity [59], stiffness [60], variability [61]) or any advanced feature engineering techniques (principal component scores, non negative matrix factorisation or interactions between features). No additional engineering feature was used to keep the interpretable and meaningful for rehabilitation, while additional more complex features are likely to increase the reported classification accuracies.…”

Rehabilitation interventions need more than methodological standardisation: an individualised approach

“…13 Faster return to play rates have been observed in those undertaking rehabilitation compared to surgery 14 indicating a role for rehabilitation. A broad range of physical performance characteristics, the target of rehabilitation interventions, have been associated with athletic groin pain including strength, 1 reactive strength 15 and change of direction biomechanics. 16 Given the broad range of physical performance characteristics related to athletic groin pain, a single-subject approach may offer insight into the variation that exists between individuals.…”