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- Title
Sensory organisation and reactive balance control of amateur rugby players: A cross-sectional study.
- Authors
Chow, Gary C. C.; Chung, Joanne W. Y.; Ma, Ada W. W.; Macfarlane, Duncan J.; Fong, Shirley S. M.
- Abstract
Purpose: This study compared the sensory organisation and reactive balance control of amateur rugby players and a control group.Methods: Forty-one amateur rugby players (22 males: 19 females; mean height ± SD = 168.8 ± 8.8 cm; mean weight ± SD = 63.9 ± 12.5 kg) and 31 control participants (22 males: 9 females; mean height ± SD = 171.5 ± 10.3 cm; mean weight ± SD = 63.8 ± 10.3 kg) completed the study. Their sensory organisation and standing balance performance were evaluated using a sensory organisation test (SOT), and their reactive balance performance was quantified using a motor control test (MCT). The SOT equilibrium scores (ES) and sensory ratios and the MCT motor response latencies were the major outcome measures.Results: The results revealed that compared to the controls, amateur rugby players had lower SOT ESs under different sensory environments (P < .001, = 0.142–0.254) and prolonged reactive motor response times in the MCT (P < .001,d = 0.890). The vestibular and visual ratios were also lower in the rugby group (P = .005, = 0.107 and 0.108, respectively). No significant difference was found in the somatosensory ratio (P = .853, < 0.001) between the two groups.Conclusions: Amateur rugby players demonstrated inferior standing balance performance compared to their non-trained counterparts. They relied less heavily on vestibular and visual inputs to maintain standing balance under different sensory environments. In addition, they reacted more slowly to postural disturbance, reflecting their suboptimal reactive balance ability in standing.
- Subjects
HONG Kong (China); ANTHROPOMETRY; COMPARATIVE studies; POSTURAL balance; EXERCISE physiology; NEUROPHYSIOLOGY; PROBABILITY theory; REACTION time; RUGBY football; EFFECT sizes (Statistics); AMATEUR athletes; NEUROMUSCULAR system; CROSS-sectional method; DESCRIPTIVE statistics
- Publication
European Journal of Sport Science, 2017, Vol 17, Issue 4, p400
- ISSN
1746-1391
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1080/17461391.2016.1257656