title: The Role of Ankle Proprioception for Balance Control in relation to Sports Performance and Injury.
abstract: Balance control improvement is one of the most important goals in sports and exercise. Better balance is strongly positively associated with enhanced athletic performance and negatively associated with lower limb sports injuries. Proprioception plays an essential role in balance control, and ankle proprioception is arguably the most important. This paper reviews ankle proprioception and explores synergies with balance control, specifically in a sporting context. Central processing of ankle proprioceptive information, along with other sensory information, enables integration for balance control. When assessing ankle proprioception, the most generalizable findings arise from methods that are ecologically valid, allow proprioceptive signals to be integrated with general vision in the central nervous system, and reflect the signal-in-noise nature of central processing. Ankle proprioceptive intervention concepts driven by such a central processing theory are further proposed and discussed for the improvement of balance control in sport.
authors.affiliation: School of Kinesiology, Shanghai University of Sport, Shanghai 200438, China ; Research Institute for Sport and Exercise, University of Canberra, Canberra, ACT 2600, Australia.
authors.forename: Jia
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Han
authors.affiliation: Research Institute for Sport and Exercise, University of Canberra, Canberra, ACT 2600, Australia.
authors.forename: Judith
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Anson
authors.affiliation: Research Institute for Sport and Exercise, University of Canberra, Canberra, ACT 2600, Australia.
authors.forename: Gordon
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Waddington
authors.affiliation: Research Institute for Sport and Exercise, University of Canberra, Canberra, ACT 2600, Australia.
authors.forename: Roger
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Adams
authors.affiliation: School of Kinesiology, Shanghai University of Sport, Shanghai 200438, China.
authors.forename: Yu
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Liu
mesh_terms: D000842:Ankle / Q000502:physiology*; D000843:Ankle Joint / Q000502:physiology; D054874:Athletic Performance / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D004856:Postural Balance; D011434:Proprioception / Q000502:physiology*