Differences in Hip and Knee Landing Moments across Female Pubertal Development

The higher prevalence of knee injuries among adolescent females may be related to female pubertal development. The aim of this study was to determine whether girls exhibit higher triplanar knee and hip moments with more advanced pubertal development during a single-limb landing.

Lower-limb biomechanics of 93 females grouped according to prepubertal (n = 31), early/midpubertal (n = 31) and late/postpubertal (n = 31) development performed a single-limb drop lateral jump. Peak triplanar knee moments and hip moments at the time of peak knee moments were derived from a Vicon motion analysis system and concealed force plate. Joint moments were normalized to body mass (N·m·kg), height (N·m·kg·m) and body mass by height (N·m·kg·m). Between-group differences were analyzed using a one-way ANOVA with Pearson correlations used to explore relationships between joint moments and anthropometrics.

Girls at latter stages of puberty landed with higher triplanar knee moments and hip flexion moment at time of peak knee flexion moment when normalized separately to body mass and to height (P < 0.05). In contrast, hip internal rotation moments at time of peak knee internal rotation moment normalized to body mass and to body mass by height were lower in late/postpubertal girls compared to their early/midpubescent (P = 0.01) and prepubescent (P = 0.01) counterparts. Positive correlations were identified between triplanar knee moments and body mass (r = 0.73-0.91, P < 0.001) and height (r = 0.61-0.89, P < 0.001) for all participants.

Higher triplanar knee and sagittal plane hip moments with more advanced pubertal stage is attributed to growth-related increases in body mass and height. Given that growth is a crucial element of puberty, further research is required to quantify the impact of pubertal growth-related changes on risk of adolescent female anterior cruciate ligament injury.