How to determine leg dominance: The agreement between self-reported and observed performance in healthy adults

Since decades leg dominance is suggested to be important in rehabilitation and return to play in athletes with anterior cruciate ligament injuries. However, an ideal method to determine leg dominance in relation to task performance is still lacking.

To test the agreement between self-reported and observed leg dominance in bilateral mobilizing and unilateral stabilizing tasks, and to assess whether the dominant leg switches between bilateral mobilizing tasks and unilateral stabilizing tasks.

Cross-sectional study.

Forty-one healthy adults: 21 men aged 36 ± 17 years old and 20 women aged 36 ±15 years old.

Participants self-reported leg dominance in the Waterloo Footedness Questionnaire-Revised (WFQ-R), and leg dominance was observed during performance of four bilateral mobilizing tasks and two unilateral stabilizing tasks. Descriptive statistics and crosstabs were used to report the percentages of agreement.

The leg used to kick a ball had 100% agreement between the self-reported and observed dominant leg for both men and women. The dominant leg in kicking a ball and standing on one leg was the same in 66.7% of the men and 85.0% of the women. The agreement with jumping with one leg was lower: 47.6% for men and 70.0% for women.

It is appropriate to ask healthy adults: "If you would shoot a ball on a target, which leg would you use to shoot the ball?" to determine leg dominance in bilateral mobilizing tasks. However, a considerable number of the participants switched the dominant leg in a unilateral stabilizing task.