Limited Associations Between Trunk Endurance and Landing Biomechanics in ROTC Cadets.

INTRODUCTION: Trunk activation is known to influence lower extremity kinematics and neuromuscular control during jump-landings; however, trunk endurance has not been explored in relation to potential movement errors associated with injury risk in Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC) cadets. Therefore, we aim to evaluate the relationship between trunk endurance and biomechanics performance during the landing error scoring system (LESS) in ROTC cadets. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Cross-sectional study. 56 ROTC cadets (age: 20.22 years ± 1.69, height: 174.37 cm ± 8.46, weight: 73.15 kg ± 13.04) completed a trunk endurance and LESS scores during a jump-landing task. Trunk endurance was measured with a bilateral side plank hold for maximal time. The jump-landing task was evaluated using a markerless motion capture system (PhysiMax Technologies LTD) integrated with an Xbox Kinect camera (Microsoft, Redmond, WA). Total LESS score and errors related to frontal plane motion, specifically medial knee displacement and lateral trunk flexion at peak knee flexion, were scored via an automated scoring system. Two-tailed bivariate Pearson correlations evaluated the association between trunk endurance and LESS scores, with statistical significance set at P < .05. Correlations were defined as negligible (0.0-0.29), low correlation (0.30-0.49), moderate correlation (0.50-0.69), high correlation (0.7-0.89), and very high correlation (0.9-1.0). RESULTS: The average plank time between right and left sides and LESS score for cadets was 88.72 ± 33.34 seconds and 5.36 ± 2.09 errors, respectively. There were non-significant negligible correlations between trunk endurance and total LESS scores (r = -.163, P = .231), total medial knee displacement errors (r = -.226 P = .094), total hip flexion displacement error (r =-.196, P = .147), lateral trunk flexion error (r = -.152, P = .263) and trunk flexion displacement (r = -0.086, P = .530). CONCLUSIONS: Our results show no clinical significance between trunk endurance and total LESS scores. However, there was a weak association between trunk endurance and right medial knee displacement. Future research should investigate how various dimensions of trunk performance, influence dynamic landing kinematics and LESS scores across both male and female populations.