The effect of 6 weeks of plyometric training on dynamic postural control and timing of selective calf muscles in females with ankle instability

Backgrounds and Aim: Plyometric exercises may increase performance and decrease injury risk in female athletes, but its effects on functional ankle instability is unclear. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of six weeks of plyometric training on dynamic postural control and timing of selective calf muscles activation in active females with functional ankle instability in single leg drop landing.
surface electromyography was recorded from peroneus longus, tibialis anterior and medial gastrocnemius muscles of 30 active females with functional ankle instability. Modified Star excursion test were used for evaluation of the dynamic postural control. In current study, we used the Pi-Huang (2014) plyometric training protocol for six weeks and 18 sessions. Paired and sample t tests in significant level of 95% were used for statistical analysis in SPSS software version 20.
The results indicating a significant increasing in the peroneus longus muscle activity (p=0.036), improving dynamic postural control (Anterior (p=0.001), posterior-medial (p=0.001) and posterior- lateral (p=0.021)) and also no significant changes in onset of tibialis anterior (P=0.831) and medial gastrocnemius (P=0.618) muscles activity after the six-week plyometric training.
Plyometric training with accelerating the reaction time in prelanding phase, could modified the timing of peroneus longus muscle and dynamic postural control that may improve the lower extremity performance in patients with functional ankle instability.