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Performance of healthy braced participants during aerobic and anaerobic capacity tasks
Neetu Rishiraj1, Jack E Taunton, Brian Niven
1ACTIN Health & Rehabilitation, Inc, Vancouver, BC, Canada. nrishiraj@actinhealth.com
Context:
Knee braces were introduced in sports approximately 30 years ago. However, the effects of a functional knee brace (FKB) on aerobic and anaerobic performance after fatigue are unknown.
Objective:
To investigate whether FKB use in noninjured participants hindered performance during aerobic (Léger beep test) and anaerobic (repeated high-intensity shuttle test [RHIST]) tasks.
Design:
Crossover study.
Setting:
Laboratory.
Patients Or Other Participants:
Twenty-seven healthy male provincial and national basketball and field hockey athletes (age = 19.4±3.0 years, range, 17-26 years; height = 182.6±6.8 cm, range, 168-196 cm; mass = 80.0±9.1 kg, range, 66-108 kg).
Intervention(S):
Each participant was provided a custom-fitted FKB and performed 5 nonbraced (NBR) testing sessions over 3 days, followed by 5 braced (BR) testing sessions over 3 days, for a total of 17.5 hours of testing per condition. During each testing session, participants performed 1 trial of the Léger beep test and 1 trial of the RHIST in each condition.
Main Outcome Measure(S):
Predicted maximal oxygen consumption (Vo(2) max) and time performance measures were recorded for each NBR and BR trial.
Results:
Initial performance levels were lower for BR than NBR for both the Léger beep test (BR = 44.3 mL/kg/min, NBR = 47.3 mL/kg/min; F(1,26) = 8.726; P = .007) and the RHIST (BR = 16.5 seconds, NBR = 16.2 seconds; F(1,26) = 13.98, P = .001). However, with continued FKB use, the aerobic performance measure remained higher for only the first 2 BR testing sessions (NBR = 46.9 mL/kg/min, BR = 42.4 mL/kg/min; F(3.0,79.8) = 4.95, P = .003). For the anaerobic test, no performance difference was noted between the testing conditions (NBR = 16.2 seconds, BR = 16.4 seconds; P = .7), whereas fatigue levels were lower during BR testing sessions (NBR = 33%, BR = 31%). After 14.0 hours of FKB use, performance levels were almost equal between the testing conditions (NBR = 47.6 mL/kg/min, BR = 46.1 mL/kg/min).
Conclusions:
We found an initial decrement in performance when the FKB was used during an aerobic or anaerobic task. However, after 14.0 hours of FKB use, accommodation to the FKB was possible.
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