title: Proprioception of the ankle: a comparison between female teenaged gymnasts and controls.
abstract: Proprioceptive mechanisms appear to play a role in stabilizing the joints and may serve as a means for interplay between static stabilizers and dynamic muscular restraints. The purpose of our study was to investigate whether or not gymnastic training has any effect on the balance and on proprioception in an ankle, as seen in gymnasts and in nongymnasts. We evaluated the proprioceptive ability of the ankle using four different tests (a one-leg-standing test, a single-limb-hopping test, an active angle-reproduction test, and a passive angle-reproduction test). Proprioception of the ankle was measured in 40 subjects who were assigned to two experimental groups. Group 1 (n: 20) were healthy control subjects, and group 2 (n: 20) were teenaged female gymnasts. The sense of position of a joint was actively measured using a Cybex NORMTM isokinetic dynamometer and measured passively with a proprioception-testing device. A Mann-Whitney U test was used to compare mean values of the gymnasts to the controls. Results revealed statistically significant differences (p<0.05) between two groups. We found no statistically significant differences between the dominant and nondominant ankle in volunteers or in gymnasts, in all tests. The results of this study suggest that gymnastic training has a positive influence on sense of position of the ankle joint and on balance, in addition to increasing muscle tone.
authors.affiliation: Department of Sports Medicine, Gülhane Military Medicine Academy, Ankara, Turkey. taydin@gata.edu.tr
authors.forename: Taner
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Aydin
authors.forename: Yavuz
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Yildiz
authors.forename: Cemil
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Yildiz
authors.forename: Sabri
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Atesalp
authors.forename: Tunç Alp
authors.initials: TA
authors.lastname: Kalyon
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000843:Ankle Joint / Q000502:physiology*; D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D006173:Gymnastics / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010806:Physical Education and Training; D004856:Postural Balance / Q000502:physiology; D011336:Probability; D011434:Proprioception / Q000502:physiology*; D011446:Prospective Studies; D016059:Range of Motion, Articular / Q000502:physiology; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric