The aim of this master's thesis was to determine evaluate differences between injured and uninjured basketball players in parameters of muscle strength or strength asymmetries of quadriceps and hamstrings and intermuscular ratios of these muscle groups and also to identify and analyse the association between thigh muscle strength and lower limb problems/injuries.
The research included 68 promising basketball players of whom 55 were men and 13 were women between the ages of 14 and 19. Each of the test subjects first completed an injury history form for injuries in the past 12 months. Then we measured their basic anthropometric parameters. This was followed by standardized warm-up and isokinetic testing on a dynamometer. Each subject performed a warm-up set with 10 repetitions at an angular velocity of 60°/sec, followed by 5 maximum concentric repetitions of knee extension and flexion and 5 maximum eccentric repetitions of knee flexion, also at an angular velocity of 60°/sec. During each performed step the subjects had a minimum break of 2 minutes.
For isokinetic measurements we used the Imoment dynamometer (SMM, Maribor, Slovenia) and based on the obtained results (maximal peak torque values of flexion and extension of the knee) we calculated the ratio between the dominant and non-dominant leg and muscular ratios. Data was processed in the IBM SPSS 22 (SPSS Inc., Chicago, Illinois, USA). To analyse the measured and calculated parameters of muscle strength between injured and uninjured we used one-way ANOVA and then a regression model was created to explain the possible relationship between injury status (yes/no) and selected muscle strength parameters which as potential injury predictors (risk and/or protective factors).
In our study we did not find statistically significant differences between the injured and the uninjured basketball players. Only when comparing players with and without injury according to the part of the body the differences appeared in chronic hip/groin injuries. More precisely, at concentric (p=0,012) and eccentric (p=0,001) strength of the non-dominant hamstring and consequently in hamstring ratio eccentric/concentric on the non-dominant side (p=0,006). There were no statistically significant differences in chronic knee injuries until we created a new variable where only those that had knee pain greater than 5 on a 10-point scale were considered as players with injury/serious problem. After this change players with serious knee problems had a statistically significant lower ratio (p=0,041) than those without serious knee problems.
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