Relationship Between 3 Single-Leg Functional Performance Tests for Netball Noncontact Knee Injury Prevention Screening in Uninjured Female Adult Players

Abstract

Context: Single- versus double-leg landing events occur the majority of the time in a netball match. Landings are involved in large proportions of netball noncontact knee injury events. Of all landing-induced anterior cruciate ligament injuries, most occur during single-leg landings. Knowledge of whether different single-leg functional performance tests capture the same or different aspects of lower-limb motor performance will therefore inform clinicians’ reasoning processes and assist in netball noncontact knee injury prevention screening. Objective: To determine the correlation between the triple hop for distance (THD), single hop for distance (SHD), and vertical hop (VH) for the right and left lower limbs in adult female netball players. Design: Cross-sectional. Setting: Local community netball club. Participants: A total of 23 players (age 28.7 [6.2] y; height 171.6 [7.0] cm; mass 68.2 [9.8] kg). Interventions: There were 3 measured trials (right and left) for THD, SHD, and VH, respectively. Main Outcome Measures: Mean hop distance (percentage of leg length [%LL]), Pearson intertest correlation (r), and coefficient of determination (r2). Results: Values (right and left; mean [SD]) were as follows: THD, 508.5 (71.8) %LL and 510.9 (56.7) %LL; SHD, 183.4 (24.6) %LL and 183.0 (21.5) %LL; and VH, 21.3 (5.2) %LL and 20.6 (5.0) %LL. All correlations were significant (P ≤ .05), r/r2 values (right and left) were THD–SHD, .91/.83 and .87/.76; THD–VH, .59/.35 and .51/.26; and SHD–VH, .50/.25 and .37/.17. A very large proportion of variance (76%–83%) was shared between the THD and SHD. A small proportion of variance was shared between the THD and VH (25%–35%) and SHD and VH (17%–25%). Conclusion: The THD and SHD capture highly similar aspects of lower-limb motor performance. In contrast, the VH captures aspects of lower-limb motor performance different to the THD or SHD. Either the THD or the SHD can be chosen for use within netball knee injury prevention screening protocols according to which is reasoned as most appropriate at a specific point in time. The VH, however, should be employed consistently alongside rather than in place of the THD or SHD.