The effect of a secondary cognitive task on landing mechanics and jump performance

Abstract

Anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injuries commonly occur during jump-landing tasks when individuals' attention is simultaneously allocated to other objects and tasks. The purpose of the current study was to investigate the effect of allocation of attention imposed by a secondary cognitive task on landing mechanics and jump performance. Thirty-eight recreational athletes performed a jump-landing task in three conditions: no counting, counting backward by 1 s from a randomly given number, and counting backward by 7 s from a randomly given number. Three-dimensional kinematics and ground reaction forces were collected and analysed. Participants demonstrated decreased knee flexion angles at initial contact (p = 0.001) for the counting by 1 s condition compared with the no counting condition. Participants also showed increased peak posterior and vertical ground reaction forces during the first 100 ms of landing (p ≤ 0.023) and decreased jump height (p < 0.001) for the counting by 1 s and counting by 7 s conditions compared with the no counting condition. Imposition of a simultaneous cognitive challenge resulted in landing mechanics associated with increased ACL loading and decreased jump performance. ACL injury risk screening protocols and injury prevention programmes may incorporate cognitive tasks into jump-landing tasks to better simulate sports environments.

The Effects of a Cognitive Dual Task on Jump-landing Movement Quality

“…Lastly, more in-dividuals committed a cognitive erorr during the difficult cognitive task than the easy cognitive task. Previous studies have also demonstrated similar findings, supporting that there may be an increased risk of injury under dual-task conditions [5,[21][22][23][24][25]35].…”

“…This current study also confirms prior reports that the addition of a cognitive dual-task to increase attentional demands [33,50] can result in increased injury risk due to neuromuscular control adaptations. Previous research has investigated dual-tasking during a drop vertical jump [22,23], cutting [21], and single-leg drop landing [24,25]. These previous investigations have shown that individuals have increased vertical ground reaction forces [22][23][24][25], decreased knee flexion angles [21][22][23], and increased knee abduction [21,22], all shown to be important lower extremity risk factors.…”

“…Although the prior studies [21][22][23][24][25] measured kinetics or kinematics with motion capture technology, we used a clinical tool to assess movement quality [38,41]. This allows for more immediate clinical application because the tuck jump checklist requires a trained clinician only to observe and score the movement.…”

“…that allow full attention to motor control may not adequately detect those that would present with higher injury risk movement on the field of play when attention is diverted [16,17,26]. The addition of a cognitive task that requires allocation of attention can negatively impact gait kinematics [27][28][29][30], stair negotiation [31], balance performance [32], and landing kinematics and kinetics [21][22][23][24][25]. These findings support the capacity model of attention, whereby there is a limit to an individual's capacity to perform mental work, and different activities impose different demands on this limited capacity [33,34].…”

The Effect of Divided Attention with Bounce Drop Jump on Dynamic Postural Stability

“…Some studies have demonstrated that ACL or LAS injuries often occur when athletes divert their attention to an opponent, ball, or some other target during jumping-landing tasks [12][13][14][15]. Almonroeder et al found that compared with male athletes, female athletes demonstrated greater landing force and peak knee abduction angles, as well as lower peak knee flexion angles, with additional cognitive demands while performing the drop vertical jump task [16].…”