Sex differences in lower landing kinematics through neuromuscular fatigue

Abstract

Rapid deceleration during sporting activities, such as landing from a jump, has been identified as a common mechanism of acute knee injury. Jumping and landing ac-tivities performed during different phases lead to differ-ences in foot strike knee flexion, as well as peak knee and hip loads. The aim of the study was to evaluate sex differ-ences in landing from a jump in relation to lower extremity landing kinematics through neuromuscular fatigue. The higher indices of female jump height decrease and fatigue when comparing results during 100 jumps were ascer-tained. Women demonstrated lower peak hip, knee joint angles and lower EMG values in T2 phase when landing from a drop jump. Furthermore, correlations between H, EMG values and landing kinematics were generally higher for women than men.