Improvement in Offaxis Neuromuscular Control Under Slippery Conditions Following Six-Week Pivoting Leg Neuromuscular Training

Abstract

Knee injuries are usually associated with offaxis loadings in the transverse and frontal planes. Thus, improvement of lower limb offaxis neuromuscular control is important in knee injury prevention and post-injury rehabilitation. The goal of this paper was to investigate the effects of six-week pivoting offaxis intensity adjustable neuromuscular control training (POINT) using a custom-made offaxis elliptical trainer on lower limb offaxis neuromuscular control performance in trained and untrained functional tasks under slippery conditions. Twenty-six subjects participated in 18 sessions of POINT (three sessions per week for six weeks) and 25 subjects served as controls who did a regular workout. Offaxis neuromuscular control performance measures in terms of pivoting instability, sliding instability, and time-to-peak offaxis EMG entropy were evaluated on both groups under slippery conditions including a trained free pivoting task and untrained free sliding task and free pivoting and sliding task. Compared with the control group, the training group significantly decreased pivoting instability and the time-to-peak offaxis EMG entropy in lower limb muscles, indicating improvement in offaxis neuromuscular control performance. Furthermore, the training group showed reduced pivoting instability and sliding instability during the untrained free pivoting and sliding task. This paper may help us develop more focused and effective offaxis training programs to reduce knee injuries associated with offaxis loadings.