Information about a piece of news titled Natural ability for jumping high predisposes to develop jumpers´s knee
Natural ability for jumping high predisposes to develop jumpers´s knee
Intoduction
This is the conclusion of a new paper addressing the relationship between jumping ability and change of jumping ability as potential risk factors for developing jumper´s knee in a cohort of young elite volleyball players.
The ‘jumper's knee paradox’, where symptomatic athletes appear to perform better in a counter movement jump compared to asymptomatic controls is not fully understood.
Following 150 young elite volleyball player over a 5-year period revealed that almost every fifth of them (19%) got jumper´s knee.
High playing exposure and a rapid increase in training volume
In Sand, a small place on the west coast of Norway (1.200 inhabitants), Norway´s young elite volleyball players are gathered in a boarding school to combine education and high level volleyball play (ToppVolley Norge - TVN).
Often, these promising players who are promoted from the junior to the senior level experience a rapid increase in their training volume and competition volume. A long term project to monitor these athletes´ health was started in 2006.
Natural ability for jumping - twice the risk
New findings revealed that players with a natural ability for jumping are predisposed to suffer from knee pain during high school career.
Accounting for gender and training history, the risk of developing jumper´s knee increased by 2 of every single cm in a counter movement jump, measured at baseline (OR=2.09, 95% CI 1.03-4.25).
- Our results did not reveal any significant differences in the change in jumping ability between the groups, although both groups improved their jump performance, Håvard Visnes, the first author adds.
Recent results from this project demonstrated a clear association between players´ training volume, match exposure, and the development of jumper´s knee.
The authors could also identify players who developed jumper´s knee as those who were highly active in volleyball and other sports activities before they started at the volleyball elite high school.
From these observations, the authors conclude that early specialization in volleyball may be a risk factor for developing jumper´s knee.
This project was led by MD and PhD candidate Håvard Visnes, Hans Åge Aandahl, and professor Roald Bahr.
Read the paper in British Journal of Sports Medicine