EAS reduces ankle- and knee-joint displacement, which appear to influence the spatial and temporal characteristics of GRFz1 during drop landings.

Context: The effects of prophylactic ankle braces on lower extremity functional performance in healthy participants have not been studied extensively.Objective: To determine if prophylactic ankle braces affected multidirectional reach distances during a test of dynamic balance.Design: Crossover. Setting: Laboratory.Patients or Other Participants: Thirty-six healthy, physically active volunteers (18 men, 18 women; age 5 23.6 6 2.7 years, height 5 173.8 6 9.3 cm, mass 5 74.4 6 12.7 kg, reach-leg length 5 91.9 6 5.1 cm).Intervention(s): Volunteers performed balance testing in 3 conditions: unbraced, while wearing a semirigid ankle brace, and while wearing a lace-up ankle brace.Main Outcome Measure(s): We used the Star Excursion Balance Test, calculating the mean of 3 attempts in 8 directions (anterior, anterior-medial, medial, posterior-medial, posterior, posterior-lateral, lateral, and anterior-lateral), normalized by the participant's reach-leg length. Data were collected after 6 practice attempts for each of the conditions according to a balanced Latin square.Results: Bracing condition had no effect (P . .05) on any of the Star Excursion Balance Test directional measures. The largest mean difference due to bracing was 2.5% between the lace-up brace condition and the control in the posterior reach direction. This indicates that the actual reach differences due to bracing were less than 5.08 cm (2 inches) in length.Conclusions: Clinicians can be confident that the prophylactic use of ankle braces does not disrupt lower extremity dynamic balance during a reaching task in healthy participants.

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Objective:To determine the retention of flexibility 25 days after 5 days of three 30-second stretches.Design:A 2 × 4 repeated-measures factorial. Treatment and time were independent variables. The dependent variable was flexibility as measured by a sit-and-reach box.Measurements:33 college students were tested before and after stretching for 5 consecutive days and without stretching on days 8 and 30. Control subjects were prone for 15 minutes; stretch subjects received 15 min of diathermy or sham diathermy and then performed three 30-second standing right-hamstring stretches.Results:Flexibility was greater on days 5, 8, and 30 than day 1, but days 5, 8, and 30 were not different from each other.Conclusion:Gains in flexibility are retained for at least 3 weeks after a stretching program. It also appears that 2 sets of 3 repetitions of a sit-and-reach test is sufficient stimulus to induce long-term flexibility gains.