Posture and isokinetic shoulder strength in female water polo players

Upper limb muscle strength and knee frontal plane projection angle asymmetries in female water-polo players

“…The nature of the sport being played in the water, makes 'field' measurement logistically challenging and, ultimately, ending in loss of specificity due to the testing requirements (e.g., fixation requirements of the players). Aginsky et al (Aginsky, 2016) examined the concentric: concentric and eccentric: eccentric ratios for dominant and non-dominant arms, and reported concentric: concentric ratio values for both sides lower than the 0.66-0.75 ratio reported earlier, while the eccentric: eccentric ratio was within that range for both sides (Aginsky, 2016). The difference in results could be attributed to the difference in testing mode (isokinetic v isometric) and speed (60°/s v static).…”

“…sports. Isokinetic assessment is commonly used (Aginsky, 2016;Hams et al, 2019;McMaster et al, 1991) for that purpose, and a recommendation of external to internal rotation ratio between 0.66 and 0.75 (Ellenbecker & Davies, 2000) has been suggested for a 'healthy' shoulder, while water-polo-specific suggestions report a much wider range of 1.0.50 (Miller et al, 2018). Nonetheless, the measurement mode (e.g., concentric: concentric or concentric: eccentric) and the isokinetic speed (e.g., 60°/s or 300°/s) and their combination, will impact on the result and the test's sensitivity to detect imbalances (De Castro et al, 2019).…”

“…Asymmetry differences were previously found between genders in Judokas (Malá et al, 2017). Given the somewhat different results between male (McMaster et al, 1991) and female (Aginsky, 2016) water-polo players' asymmetries and the issues identified with testing, future studies should explore gender differences and relevant injury risk. Further, it has been shown that asymmetries can change throughout the season, as a result of accumulated fatigue (Hams et al, 2019;Wang, 2001).…”

“…The lack of stability induced by the aquatic environment and the performance demands of the shot result in increased internal and decreased external rotation strength of the shooting shoulder (Hams et al, 2019), potentially inducing intra-shoulder strength imbalance, causing the same injury risk issues common to other overhead sports (e.g., 5). Indeed, isokinetic torque rotator cuff imbalances have been reported in male (McMaster et al, 1991) and female (Aginsky, 2016) water-polo players, with the prevalent intra-shoulder strength imbalances related to increased injury risk (Hams et al, 2019;Miller et al, 2018). In addition, inter-shoulder imbalances can affect swimming performance (2006), in turn affecting playing performance as swimming is a considerable part of the sport (31.5% of the game time or training, averaged across all positions, is considered as swimming (Tan et al, 2009)).…”

“…Previous studies have mainly focused on physiological and time motion aspects (e.g., 10) or the kinematic and kinetics of the overarm shot and eggbeater (Armour & Elliott, 1989;Yaghoubi et al, 2015) and have not considered any muscular asymmetries. Given the possibility of asymmetries increasing the injury risk of water-polo players (Aginsky, 2016;Drigny et al, 2020;Kennedy et al, 2009), it is important to further understand muscular asymmetries to inform relevant training guidelines (Kennedy et al, 2009). Therefore, the aim of the project was to examine the intra-shoulder (anterior: posterior) and inter-shoulder (shooting: non-shooting) muscle asymmetries of the upper limbs as well as the inter-limb knee FPPA asymmetries in elite female water-polo players.…”