Do Cutting Kinematics Change as Boys Mature? A Longitudinal Cohort Study of High-School Athletes

Examine longitudinal changes in trunk, hip, and knee kinematics in maturing boys during an unanticipated cutting task.

Prospective cohort study.

Biomechanical laboratory.

Forty-two high-school male basketball, volleyball, and soccer athletes.

Trunk, hip, and knee range-of-motion (RoM), peak angles, and angles at initial contact during an unanticipated 45 degrees sidestep cutting task were estimated using laboratory-based three-dimensional optoelectronic motion capture. Maturation was classified using a modified Pubertal Maturational Observational Scale (PMOS) into prepubertal, midpubertal, or postpubertal stages.

Trunk total RoM in frontal, sagittal, and transverse planes; peak trunk flexion, right lateral flexion and right rotation angles; hip total RoM in frontal, sagittal, and transverse planes; hip flexion angle at initial contact; peak hip flexion and adduction angles; knee total RoM in frontal, sagittal, and transverse planes; knee flexion angle at initial contact; peak knee flexion and abduction angles.

As boys matured, there was a decrease in hip sagittal-plane RoM (49.02 degrees to 43.45 degrees, Benjamini-Hochberg adjusted P = 0.027), hip flexion at initial contact (29.33 degrees to 23.08 degrees, P = 0.018), and peak hip flexion (38.66 degrees to 32.71 degrees, P = 0.046), and an increase in trunk contralateral rotation (17.47 degrees to 25.05 degrees, P = 0.027).

Maturing male athletes adopted a more erect cutting strategy that is associated with greater knee joint loading. Knee kinematic changes that increase knee joint loading were not observed in this cohort.