Relationship Between Knee Valgus and Ground Reaction Force in Soccer Players Using Soccer Boots Landing on an Official Artificial Turf

Abstract

Introduction: There is a high incidence of Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL) injuries in soccer and 37% of this happens during landing after a jumping event. The measure of valgus knee moment during landing of a Drop Jump (DJ) has been considered a gold standard test to predict the risk of ACL injury in young athletes. Furthermore, researchers have used 2D frontal angle of the knee trying to make a practical tool to evaluate this injury risk, however, to the best of our knowledge, there is no studies about the relationship between mechanical load and 2D dynamic knee valgus parameters. Purpose: To verify the relationship between kinetics and kinematics ACL injury risk factors: the GRF and the a) peak knee valgus; b) valgus knee displacement in soccer players wearing soccer boots landing on an official synthetic turf. Methods: Twenty Brazilian soccer players, 15-17 years old, with 176.6 ± 6.4 cm of height and 67.4 ± 8.1 kg of body mass participated in this study. Following familiarization, subjects performed the DJ from a height of 40 cm. They landed on two force plates synchronized with Vicon system for kinetic and kinematic analyses, respectively. Results: Only valgus knee displacement (-1.4 ± 7.0 °) and antero-posterior component of GRF (-0.402 ± 0.097 BW) presented a significant relationship (r = 0.353; p = 0.025). Conclusion: There is a significant correlation between knee valgus displacement and GRF antero-posterior component for soccer players in an official artificial turf using soccer boots.