Comparison of the Effects of Muscular Fatigue on Neck Proprioception Performance between Professional Karate Athletes and Non-Athletes

The poor performance of neck proprioception is a risk factor for athlete’s head and neck injury. Muscle fatigue, as an inevitable factor of any physical activity, can cause disorder in proprioception performance. The present study was carried out to investigate the effect of cervical muscular fatigue on neck proprioception performance in karate athletes in comparison to non-athletes.
A total of 16 professional karate athletes (mean age ± SD; 21.00 ± 2.73 years, mean height ± SD; 1.78 ± 0.05 cm, and mean weight ± SD; 71.38 ± 11.32 kg) and 16 non-athletes (mean age ± SD; 20.81 ± 1.87 years, mean height ± SD; 1.75 ± 0.04 cm, and mean weight ± SD; 70.00 ± 12.24 kg) participated in the study. Participants performed dumbbell shrug shoulder (with 30% 1RM) for fatigue protocol. Cervicocephalic relocation test was used measuring angle repositioning error during active cervical extension and rotation movements to assess neck proprioception ability, before and after isotonic muscular fatigue.
No significant difference was observed in neck position sense before and after neck muscles fatigue in the two groups. However, a significant difference was found in neck proprioception performance between karate athletes and non-athletes following extension (P Although muscular fatigue did not affect proprioceptive neck performance, probably the effects of degenerative changes in neck proprioception and the acceleration repeated movements in karate athletes have weakened their neck proprioception function in some direction in comparison to non-athletes. Therefore, it is important to improve the performance of neck proprioception in karate athletes through special neck proprioception trainings.