The Effect of Six Weeks Suspension Training On Functional Test’s Score in Athletes with Functional Ankle Instability

Functional dysfunction has been reported as one of the most important consequences of functional ankle instability injury. One of the newest tools used to rehabilitate musculoskeletal injuries is suspension training with TRX )Total Body Resistance Exercise(. However, so far, its effect on the various functional factors in athletes with functional ankle instability has not been determined.  Therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of 6 weeks of suspension training with TRX on the performance scores of athletes with functional ankle instability.

30 male athletes with functional ankle instability were selected and then randomly assigned into the control and training groups. The subjects were selected by inclusion and exclusion criteria. Subjects' performance was assessed by side hop test, figure 8 test, and three single-leg hop test. The training group performed 18 training sessions of 45 minutes during 6 weeks. During 6 weeks, control group were asked to not perform any special exercise. Then, the post-test was performed in both groups. In order to compare the scores of functional tests between two groups, paired t-test and covariance analysis were used. Significant level was considered as p≤0.05 in all statistical analyzes.

The results of statistical tests showed that there is a significant difference between the mean scores of each of the three side hop test (p=0.001) figure 8 test (p=0.001), and three single-leg hop tests (p=0.001) between the two groups in the post-test. Therefore, that subjects of the TRX training group had better performance in all three tests than those in the control group.

Since the results of this study showed that performing TRX suspension training can improve the performance of athletes in side-hop test, figure 8 test and triple hop test, therefore it recommended that all sport trainers use the exercises used in this study to improve the performance of athletes with functional ankle instability.