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Motion analysis offers objective insight into biomechanics, rehabilitation progress and return to sport readiness. This study examined changes in three-dimensional movement patterns during drop jump landing between early and late stages of rehabilitation in adolescent athletes following anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction (ACLR). Twenty-four athletes (58% female; mean age 15.4 years, SD 1.2) with unilateral ACLR underwent motion analysis testing 3–6 months and again 6–10 months post-operatively. Kinematics and kinetics were compared between visits and between limbs using repeated measures ANOVA. The operative side exhibited lower vertical ground reaction force, less energy absorption and lower sagittal external moments at the knee and ankle, and lower peak dorsiflexion angles compared with the non-operative side regardless of visit. Between visits, hip and knee flexion increased bilaterally, as well as hip flexion moments and energy absorption. During early rehabilitation following ACLR, adolescent athletes reduced flexion and loading of the knee and ankle on their operative limb. Motion and loading increased over time, particularly at the hip, but remained reduced at the knee and ankle 6–10 months post-operatively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Understanding movement variability is important to guide biomechanical assessment. Variability may change with age, and more repetitions of a movement need to be assessed when variability is high.Research Question: This study quantified the trial-to-trial (within subject) variability of three tasks commonly assessed during sports biomechanical testing: vertical drop jump, heel touch (single leg squat from step), and single leg hop. We hypothesized that pre-teen athletes would exhibit greater variability than more mature teenage athletes when performing all of these movements.Methods: Fifty-five uninjured pediatric athletes ages 7-15 years performed 3 repetitions of vertical drop jump, heel touch, and single leg hop for distance tasks during 3D motion analysis testing. Trial-to-trial variability was assessed using the standard deviation (SD) and range (maximum-minimum) of clinically relevant kinematic and kinetic metrics among the multiple repetitions of each task performed by each participant. Variability was compared between age groups using 2-sided t-tests. Standard error of measurement (SEM) and minimum detectable difference (MDD) were also calculated for each variable of interest.Results: For drop jump and heel touch, kinetic variability was similar between groups, but the younger group had greater kinematic variability. However, the older group was much more variable than the younger group during single leg hop landing, particularly in terms of kinetics and sagittal plane kinematics. Overall, kinematic variability had a median within-subject SD of 1-9°, median range of 2-17°, and 95th percentile for range of >15-20° for many of the variables examined. MDD was >10° for many kinematic variables, >0.2 Nm/kg for all frontal plane moments, >0.4 Nm/kg for most sagittal plane moments, and >0.5 W/kg for most energy absorption variables.Significance: The high within-subject trial-to-trial variability in performing sports tasks suggests that multiple trials should be analyzed for a more complete and representative evaluation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]