Wide Skis As a Potential Knee Injury Risk Factor in Alpine Skiing

Frontiers in Sports and Active Living

Martin Zorko¹  Bojan Nemec²  Katja Tomazin³  Matej Supej³  Andrej Olenšek⁴  Zlatko Matjačić⁴ 

[1] Clinical Institute of Occupational, Traffic and Sports Medicine, University Medical Centre Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia;Department for Automatics, Biocybernetics and Robotics, Jožef Štefan Institute, Ljubljana, Slovenia;Faculty of Sport, University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia;Research and Development Unit, University Rehabilitation Institute, Ljubljana, Slovenia;

关键词: 3D kinematics;    simulation;    biomechanics;    electromyography;    injury prevention;    kinetics;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fspor.2020.00007

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

Alpine skis with wider waist widths have recently become more popular. With such skis, the contact point of the ground reaction force during ski turns is displaced more medially from beneath the sole of the outer ski, which may present an increased risk of injury. The aim of this study was to investigate knee joint kinetics, kinematics, and lower limb muscle activation as a function of changes of the ski waist width in a laboratory setting. A custom skiing simulator was constructed to enable simulation of different ski waist widths in a quasi-static ski turn position. An optical system was used for capturing knee joint kinematics of the outer leg, whereas a force plate was used to determine the ground reaction force vector. The combination of both systems enabled values for external torques acting on the knee joint to be calculated, whereas electromyographic measurements enabled an analysis of knee flexor muscle activation. With respect to the outer ski, the knee joint external torques were independent of ski waist width, whereas knee joint external rotation and biceps femoris activation increased significantly with the increase of the ski waist width. Skier muscle and kinematics adaptation most probably took place to diminish the external knee joint torque changes when the waist width of the ski was increased. The laboratory results suggest that using skis with large waist widths on hard, frozen surfaces may change the load of knee joint surfaces. However, future research is needed to clarify if this may result in the increased risk of knee injury.

【 授权许可】

Unknown