Research in Sport Medicine and Technology

---

The fencing lunge is one of the most common and fundamental attacking moves in fencing. The aim of this study was to provide kinematical compare of upper extremity among elite female and male senior fencers when performing a lunge.  Four female and four male members of Iran National Team were selected as research sample. The subjects were filmed when performing a complete lunge with a camera of 300 Hz sampling rate to record their reactions to a light stimulus. To analyze the collected data, mean, standard deviation and student's-t test at significance level of p≤0.05 were used. The results revealed that elite male fencers had significantly shorter reaction and movement time comparing with elite female fencers. No major differences in other kinematic parameters indicate that elite male and female fencers performed lunge in similar way. The final conclusion of this study is that the existing differences in time of lunge technique may suggest the need for alternative training strategies to prepare fencing athletes.

---

Introduction: Studies have shown that anterior cruciate ligament injury causes long-term periods of disability and long-term effects; Therefore, it is necessary to adopt preventive measures as well as to have studies that determine the effect of injury prevention programs in improving the performance level of players. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of eight weeks of the anterior cruciate ligament injury prevention program on the function of elite female kabaddi athletes.
Materials and Methods: This research is semi-experimental based on the application of the intervention variable. 27 female kabaddi athletes with an age range of 18-24 years were randomly divided into two intervention and control groups. The intervention group performed prevention injury and enhance performance program exercises for 8 weeks. The tests were taken before and after eight weeks of the PEP program. These evaluations included T-test, 20-meter sprint test, Y-balance test, sitting and reaching flexibility test, hopping test and functional movement screening test. leven's statistical test was used to check the homogeneity of variances and ANCOVA test was used to evaluate and compare the data.
Findings: The results of the covariance analysis test showed that the intervention group had significantly better scores compared to the control group in the Y-balance tests of the right (p=0.002) and left leg (p=0.001), single leg hopping with right leg (p=0.004) and left leg (p=0.000), crossover hopping with right leg (p=0.023) and sit and reach flexibility test (p=0.003) after eight weeks of exercises In addition, in the tests of sprinting (p=0.649), agility (p=0.073), triple hopping with left leg (p=0.784) and right leg (p=0.204), crossover hopping with left leg (p=0.540) and functional movement screening test (p=0.943) did not show any significant difference between the two groups.
Results: The results of this research showed that the eight-week prevention injury and enhance performance program  has a significant effect on the dynamic balance of the right and left legs, hopping (single leg hopping and crossover hopping of the right leg), and the flexibility of the hamstrings and lower back of elite female kabaddi athletes; But hopping (triple hopping and left leg crossover hopping), speed, agility and FMS test scores have no significant effect.

---

Different postural stability and functional movements may play an important role in secondary injuries in people with flexible flatfeet compared to people with normal feet. However, the difference between static and dynamic stability and functional movements of people with and without flexible flatfeet has not been investigated. This study compared static and dynamic stability and functional movements of subjects with and without flexible flatfeet and examined the relationship between functional movements and static and dynamic stability. 96 subjects (flexible flatfeet group: 25; normal feet group: 71) functional movement screening test (FMS); Sharpened Romberg balance test and Y balance test were performed. The scores of functional movements and static stability in the normal feet group were significantly higher than the flexible flatfeet group (p≤0.05). The total score of the Y test was not significantly different between the two groups (p≥0.05). In the group of normal feet, a significant correlation was observed between functional movement scores and dynamic stability (p≤0.05). These results show that subjects with flexible flatfeet have different movement performance and static stability compared to subjects with normal feet, but they have similar dynamic stability. It may indicate that there is no connection between static and dynamic stability and these two functions are separate from each other.
 

---

The purpose of this study was determining validity and reliability of the Athlete Fear Avoidance Questionnaire (AFAQ). For this purpose, 120 atheltes with different levels of skills in different fields, were chosen and completed the the AFAQ, the Kinesiophobia Questionnaire, and the Pain Catastrophizing Scale and the Sport Injury Appraisal Scale. AFAQ was confirmed by using translation-back translation method and face validity and translation accuracy. Cronbach's alpha index, exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, Pearson correlation coefficient and intraclass correlation coefficient were used to check construct validity, internal consistency and temporal reliability. The results showed that the one-factor model of the athletes' fear-avoidance questionnaire had a poor fit, for this reason, after conducting the exploratory factor analysis and identifying three factors in these questionnaires, the confirmatory factor analysis model also fitted the data well with this the three-factor model. So that the CFI index was 0. 96 and the TLI index was 0. 94 as well as the RMSE index of 0. 05 and the chi-square ratio to the degree of freedom(X²/DF) was 1. 39. The internal consistency of the questionnaire was also confirmed. Based on this, the Persian version of the AFAQ has 3 factors and includes 10 questions and three catastrophic constructs (items 1, 5, 8), fear of movement (4, 6, 7) and fear-avoidance beliefs (items 2, 3, 9, 10) was confirmed in the community of Iranian athletes.
 

---

The purpose of present study was to investigate the relationship between
Anthropometric characteristics and hip joint flexibility among teenaged girls in
football schools. The population of this study comprised 120 teenaged girls from
football schools of Mashhad. 40 teenaged girls of the population with mean and
standard deviation of age 13/90±0/84 years, weight 51/62±6/51 kg, and height
156/35±4/22 cm as subjects participated. The Anthropometric variables
including calf length, tight length, calf circumference, hip circumference, knee
diameter, pelvic width, and thickness of subcutaneous fat of iliac crest, iliac,
front tight, middle of the calf, range of motion in flexion and extension were
measured. The collected data were analyzed through descriptive statistics and
Pearson correlation coefficient with significant level of p < 0.05. The results
showed that there is a negative and significant relationship between thickness
of subcutaneous fat in front tight, middle of the calf and the range of motion in
hip flexion. However, there is a positive and significant relationship between
pelvic width and the range of motion in hip extension. The results of the present
study demonstrated that there is a relationship between thickness of
subcutaneous fat and pelvic width and hip joint flexibility

---

Due to the necessity of screening injury the aim of this study was to screen the scores of Functional movement screening tests in active and inactive subject . The study population consisted of University Students aged 18 to 25 years out of which 50 students (25 active and 25 inactive) were selected. Functional Movement Screen by Cook were used for functional screening. After the normality of the overall scores for FMS, Independed-Samples T-Test was used in SPSS (version 16) to analyze the data at significant level of 0/05. According to the findings, overall scores of FMS was significantly different between active and inactive subjects (P=0/001). Cut-off point of 17 was obtained for all subjects. There was no significant difference in shoulder mobility and straight leg raise test scores in the active and inactive people but there was significant difference among the scores of other five tests This prospective study shows that due to the overall score FMS inactive people than in active people are more prone to injury.

---

---

Functional Movement Screen Test is one of the tests used to identify asymmetries and limitations in basic and fundamental movements. For time management and fast execution of this test, some researchers have suggested reducing the number of tests. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the internal consistency and correlation between components of this test. The present study was a correlational study. In this study, movement screen test was performed on 165 male and female students aged 18 to 25 years of Shahid Beheshti University using a special FMS kit. Results: The internal consistency of the test, measured by Cronbach's alpha method, was acceptable (α=0.71). The results of multivariate regression test showed that there was a low to medium correlation between the internal components of the test, but a high correlation was observed between the test components and the final FMS score. The results also showed a high correlation between the "four small movements" (Active leg raising, shoulder mobility, stability push up and rotary stability) and the total FMS score and a low correlation between the "three big movements" and the FMS score. Motor function screen test is a valid tool for evaluating motor performance. The results also show that in large communities such as students, and if there is a time limit, "four small movements" can be used instead of seven.