Fatigue-induced modifications to trunk and lower-limb coordination mode during drop vertical jump and sidestep cutting tasks in female handball athletes

Background: Examining movement patterns in athletic activities is crucial for understanding the mechanisms and contributing factors linked to lower limb injuries, with the knee joint being particularly vulnerable in team sports like handball.

Research question: How does a handball-specific fatigue protocol affect trunk-knee and hip-knee intersegmental coordination during the drop vertical jump (DVJ) and sidestep cutting maneuver (SCM) in handball players?

Methods: Twenty female handball athletes participated, performing three trials of each task before and after undergoing the fatigue protocol. Using a motion capture system, the trunk, hip, and knee joint angles were recorded in all three planes and time-normalized to 100 % of the stance phase. A vector coding technique evaluated coordination nodes.

Results: This study indicated significant post-fatigue alterations in coordination modes, especially in the sagittal plane for DVJ and SCM tasks. There was an increase in knee phase modes and a decrease in in-phase modes for hip-knee coordination during the DVJ task, with transverse plane coordination being affected only in the SCM task. Movement variability decreased in the frontal and transverse planes post-fatigue, suggesting a neuromuscular strategy to simplify task execution.

Significance: Fatigue's significant impact on movement coordination and variability. It demonstrates the importance of considering the specificity of the task performed when setting up injury prevention training to mitigate the negative effects of fatigue and reduce the risk of injuries.