The Effect of 8-Week Total Body Resistant Suspension Exercises on Shoulder Joint Proprioception in Overhead Athletes with Impingement Syndrome: A Randomized Clinical Trial Study

Shoulder impingement syndrome is one of the important causes of shoulder pain, which affects the shoulder joint proprioception. Closed kinetic chain exercises are more useful and safer than opened kinetic chain exercises. The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of total body resistance exercise (TRX) on the shoulder joint proprioception of athletes with overhead movements with impingement syndrome. This research is a randomized clinical trial. 22 athletes with overhead movements with shoulder impingement syndrome in Kerman (2017) were selected and randomly assigned to two groups: TRX and control. The exercises were performed for 8 weeks, three days a week and 60 minutes each session. Proprioception sense was evaluated by Leighton’s flexometer in four movements of external rotation, internal rotation, abduction, and flexion of the arm. Independent t-test was used to analyze the data. The results showed that there was no significant difference between the control and TRX groups in the pre-test of external rotation, internal rotation, abduction, and flexion angles (p<0.05) but in post-test, there was a significant difference in all target angles of external rotation (p<0.001), internal rotation (p<0.001), abduction (p<0.001), and flexion (p=0.015). According to the results, 8 weeks of TRX exercises had an effect on the condition of shoulder joint in athletes with overhead movements with shoulder impingement syndrome. It seems that it can be used as an appropriate training method in athletes with shoulder impingement syndrome.