Previous high school participation in varsity sport and jump-landing biomechanics in adult recreational athletes

Abstract

Context: Early sports sampling is associated with superior biomechanics in youth athletes; however, the effect of multisport participation on adult biomechanics is unknown. Objective: To compare jump-landing biomechanics between adult recreational athletes who previously participated in 0, 1, or 2 or more select high school varsity sports (VSs; basketball, lacrosse, soccer, volleyball) that feature landing and cutting tasks. Design: Descriptive laboratory study. Setting: University community setting. Patients or Other Participants: Fifty adult recreational athletes (22 women, 28 men; age = 23.8 ± 2.5 years) with no high school VS experience or with high school VS experience in basketball, lacrosse, soccer, or volleyball. Athletes were grouped into those who participated in 0 (0VS, n = 11), 1 (1VS, n = 21), or 2 or more (2VSs, n = 18) of these sports at the high school level. Main Outcome Measure(s): The average Landing Error Scoring System (LESS) total score from 3 individual jump landings was determined. A 1-way analysis of covariance using sex as the covariate was calculated to compare groups. The Pearson R was used to test for the correlation between the LESS score and number of sports played, and a linear regression analysis was performed using the number of sports played to predict the LESS score. The α level was set a priori at.05. Results: The 0VS athletes produced similar LESS scores as the 1VS athletes (5.89 ± 1.2 versus 5.38 ± 1.93 points, respectively, P =.463), whereas the 2VSs athletes demonstrated lower LESS scores (3.56 ± 1.97 points) than the 0VS (P =.002) and 1VS (P =.004) athletes. The LESS scores were moderately negatively correlated with the number of high school VSs played (R2 = -0.491, P