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Reactive Strength as a Metric for Informing Return-to-Sport Decisions: A Case-Control Study
Abstract
Objective: Current return-to-sport decisions are primarily based on elapsed time since surgery or injury and strength measures. Given data that show rates of successful return to competitive sport at around 55%, there is strong rationale for adopting tools that will better inform return-to-sport decisions. The authors’ objective was to assess reactive strength as a metric for informing return-to-sport decisions.
Design: Case-control design.
Methods: Fifteen elite athletes from national sports teams (23 [6.0] y) in the final phase of their return-to-sport protocol following a unilateral knee injury and 16 age-matched control athletes (22 [4.6] y) performed a unilateral isometric strength test and 24-cm drop jump test. Pairwise comparisons were used to determine differences between legs within groups and differences in interleg asymmetry between groups.
Results: Strength measures did not distinguish the control from the rehabilitation group; however, clear differences in the degree of asymmetry were apparent between the control and rehabilitation groups for contact time (Cohen d = 0.56; −0.14 to 1.27; 8.2%; P = .113), flight time (d = 1.10; 0.44 to 1.76; 16.0%; P = .002), and reactive strength index (d = 1.27; 0.50 to 2.04; 22.4%; P = .002).
Conclusion: Reactive strength data provide insight into functional deficits that persist into the final phase of a return-to-sport protocol. The authors’ findings support the use of dynamic assessment tools to inform return-to-sport decisions to limit potential for injury.
Type
Journal Article
Type of thesis
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Citation
Date
2022-01-01
Publisher
Human Kinetics Publishing Inc.
Degree
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Rights
This is an author’s accepted version of an article published in Journal of Sport Rehabilitation. © 2021 Human Kinetics.