An 8-week injury prevention exercise program combined with change-of-direction technique training reduces change-of-direction knee joint loading without compromising performance

Abstract

Abstract Knee ligament sprains are common during change-of-direction (COD) maneuvers in multidirectional team sports. This study aimed to compare the effects of an 8-week injury prevention exercise program containing COD-specific exercises and a similar program containing linear sprint exercises on performance- and injury-related variables during a 135° COD task. We hypothesized that the COD-specific training would lead to more effective reductions in the peak knee abduction moment (H1) as an indicator for knee injury risk and more effective improvements in COD performance, i.e., lower COD completion time (H2) and sharper executed angle (H3). Twenty-two sports science students (40% female) completed biomechanical assessments of COD movement strategies before and after participating in two supervised 25-minute training sessions per week over eight weeks. In partial support of our hypothesis, the COD-specific training but not the linear sprint training led to reduced peak knee abduction moments (significant ‘training*group’ interaction, p = 0.034) compared to baseline. At the same time, the COD-specific training did not lead to a significant performance detriment. In conclusion, a generic knee injury prevention program combined with COD-specific exercises has the potential to prevent knee sprains in multidirectional team sports more effectively than generic programs alone without compromising COD performance.