Immediate effects of cold spray application on timing and activation pattern of the knee joint muscles during one-leg landing

Cold sprays (CS) are widely used in sport competitions as an effective, simple, and high available treatment.

The aim of present study was to investigate immediate and longtime effects of CS application onto the knee joint anterior-medial area of dominant leg on timing and activation pattern of selected muscles during one-leg landing.

Thirty (15 control and 15 experimental) able-bodied male participated in this study. Electromyography activity of vastus medialis, rectus femoris, vastus lateralis, biceps femoris, semiendineus and medial gastrocnemius were recorded during one-leg landing tests (with dominant leg) for each of three conditions including before CS application (pre-test), immediately after (post-test 1), and 20 min later (post-test 2). To determine the effect of group and time on each dependent variable, three independent 2×2 multivariate repeated measures analyses of variance were performed (α < 0.05).

The results showed following trends rather than significant differences: the muscles in the experimental group had lower activity level and later onset immediately after CS application compared to before application, and they had higher activity level and sooner onset after 20 min from removing CScompared to immediate application. No significant interaction was found for normalized peak activation and time to peak activation (P> 0.05). However, decrease in skin temperature after cold spray application was observed.

These results show short-time cold application, which is so practical after many injuries for returning athletes to sport environment, may not predispose individuals to risk of re-injury or failed landing mechanism.