Assessing inter-limb asymmetries in soccer players: magnitude, direction and association with performance

Madruga-Parera, Marc, Dos'Santos, Thomas, Bishop, Chris ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1505-1287, Turner, Anthony N. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5121-432X, Blanco, David, Beltran-Garrido, Vicente ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9286-8453, Moreno-Pérez, Victor and Romero-Rodríguez, Daniel (2021) Assessing inter-limb asymmetries in soccer players: magnitude, direction and association with performance. Journal of Human Kinetics, 79 (1) . pp. 41-53. ISSN 1640-5544 [Article] (doi:10.2478/hukin-2021-0081)

Preview

PDF - Published version (with publisher's formatting) Available under License Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0. Download (459kB) | Preview

Abstract

In this study, we aimed to analyze the magnitude and direction of interlimb asymmetries in ankle dorsiflexion range of motion (ROM), power (using iso-inertial devices), and a neuromuscular skill (change of direction). Secondarily, we aimed to determine the relationship between interlimb asymmetry scores for each test and also between these scores and the scores for the different performance tests. Sixteen semiprofessional male soccer players (age: 25.38  6.08 years; body height: 1.78  0.64 m; body mass: 79.5  14.9 kg) participated in this study. We calculated interlimb asymmetries using five tests: ankle dorsiflexion ROM, change of direction (COD 180º), and iso-inertial resistance tasks in the open (leg extension strength (LE), leg curl strength (LC)) and closed (crossover step (CRO)) kinetic chain. Our results showed that asymmetry magnitudes differed between all tests with highest interlimb asymmetries displayed during iso-inertial overloading. In addition, we observed that the direction of asymmetries varied depending on the test-specificity, and that the CRO asymmetries had a negative association with LE and CRO performance. These findings highlight the independent nature of asymmetries and that CRO could be an appropriate test to detect asymmetries related with the performance of soccer-specific actions (such as changes of direction). Practitioners are encouraged to use multiple tests to detect existing interlimb differences according to the specific characteristics of each sport.

Actions (login required)

View Item

Statistics

DownloadsShow export options

Export as CSVXMLJSON

Activity Overview

6 month trend

52Downloads

6 month trend

120Hits

Additional statistics are available via IRStats2.