Context: Lateral ankle sprains are a common injury in which the mechanics of injury have been extensively studied. However, the anticipatory mechanisms to ankle inversion perturbations are not well understood.
Objective: To examine lower-extremity kinematics, including spatial and temporal variables of maximum inversion displacement and maximum inversion velocity, during landings on a tilted surface using a new experimental protocol to replicate a lateral ankle sprain.
Setting: Three-dimensional motion analysis laboratory.
Participants: A total of 23 healthy adults.
Interventions: Participants completed unexpected (UE) and expected (EXP) unilateral landings onto a tilted surface rotated 25° in the frontal plane from a height of 30 cm.
Main outcome measures: Ankle, knee, and hip kinematics at each discrete time point from 150 ms pre-initial contact (IC) to 150 ms post-IC, in addition to maximum ankle inversion and maximum inversion velocity, were compared between UE and EXP landings.
Results: The UE landing produced significantly greater maximum inversion displacement (P < .01) and maximum inversion velocity (P = .02) than the EXP landing. Significantly less ankle inversion and internal rotation were found during pre-IC, whereas during post-IC, significantly greater ankle inversion, ankle internal rotation, knee flexion, and knee abduction were observed for the UE landing (P < .05). In addition, significantly less hip flexion and hip adduction were observed for the UE landing during pre-IC and post-IC (P < .05).
Conclusions: Differences in the UE and EXP landings indicate the experimental protocol presented a UE inversion perturbation that approximates the mechanism of a lateral ankle sprain. Furthermore, knowledge of the inversion perturbation elicited a hip-dominant strategy, which may be utilized to assist with ankle joint stabilization during landing to further protect the lateral ankle from injury.
Keywords: ankle stability; anticipated landings; lateral ankle sprain mechanics; lower-extremity injury.