Postural Performance and Strategy in the Unipedal Stance of Soccer Players at Different Levels of Competition

Thierry Paillard (1) , Frédéric Noé (1) , Terence Rivière , Vincent Marion , Richard Montoya (2) , Philippe Dupui (2)

1 MEPS - Mouvement, Équilibre, Performance, Santé
2 Neurologie et Explorations Fonctionnelles du Système Nerveux [Toulouse]

Context: Sport training enhances the ability to use somato-sensory and otolithic information, which improves postural capabilities. Postural changes are different according to the sport practiced, but few authors have analyzed subjects' postural performances to discriminate the expertise level among highly skilled athletes within a specific discipline. Objective: To compare the postural performance and the postural strategy between soccer players at different levels of competition (national and regional). Design: Repeated measures with 1 between-groups factor (lev-el of competition: national or regional) and 1 within-groups factor (vision: eyes open or eyes closed). Dependent variables were center of pressure surface area and velocity; total spectral energy; and percentage of low-, medium-, and high-frequency band. Setting: Sports performance laboratory. Patients or Other Participants: Fifteen national male soccer players (age ϭ 24 Ϯ 3 years, height ϭ 179 Ϯ 5 cm, mass ϭ 72 Ϯ 3 kg) and 15 regional male soccer players (age ϭ 23 Ϯ 3 years, height ϭ 174 Ϯ 4 cm, mass ϭ 68 Ϯ 5 kg) participated in the study. Intervention(s): The subjects performed posturographic tests with eyes open and closed. Main Outcome Measure(s): While subjects performed static and dynamic posturographic tests, we measured the center of foot pressure on a force platform. Spatiotemporal center-of-pressure measurements were used to evaluate the postural performance, and a frequency analysis of the center-of-pressure excursions (fast Fourier transform) was conducted to estimate the postural strategy. Results: Within a laboratory task, national soccer players produced better postural performances than regional players and had a different postural strategy. The national players were more stable than the regional players and used proprioception and vision information differently. Conclusions: In the test conditions specific to playing soccer , level of playing experience influenced postural control performance measures and strategies. P ostural regulation is organized in hierarchic and stereotypic patterns 1 and requires the integration of afferent information from the visual, vestibular, and proprioceptive systems. 2 Sport training enhances the ability to use somatosensory and otolithic information, which improves postural capabilities. 3 Postural changes are different according to the sport practiced. 4 For example, judo training leads to greater importance being placed on somatosensory information, whereas dance training results in more attention to visual information. 5 Each sport develops specific postural adaptations that are not transferable to the usual upright postures. 6,7 Indeed, Asseman et al 6 evaluated elite gymnasts in 3 postural conditions: bipedal, unipedal, and hand-stands. The gymnasts who were best in the specific unipedal or handstand conditions were not the same as those who were best in the nonspecific bipedal task. Even though nonspecific tasks such as bipedal stance are typically used in activities of daily living, in athletes, it is more relevant to evaluate postural abilities in specific conditions relative to the particular sport. Soccer requires a unipedal posture to perform different technical movements (eg, shooting, passing). The stability of the supporting foot turns out to be critical to shoot as accurately as possible. Therefore, soccer players' postural control should be evaluated in a unipedal stance to respect the specific conditions of soccer. Previous authors have studied soccer players' postural control in a unipedal stance to reduce the risk of traumatic injuries to the lower extremities 8 or to evaluate the effects of rehabilitative training of the ankle joint. 9,10 However, as far as we know, no study has yet been carried out comparing postural performance and strategy in soccer players of different levels of expertise. The postural performance can be characterized by the ability to minimize postural sway, and the postural strategy corresponds to the preferential involvement of short or long neuronal loops in balance regulation. Our aim was to compare postural performance and strategy in unipedal stance between players at different levels of soccer competition .

Mots clés: balance; soccer; postural control; spectral anal- ysis

Domaines: Sciences du Vivant [q-bio]

Thierry Paillard, Frédéric Noé, Terence Rivière, Vincent Marion, Richard Montoya, et al.. Postural Performance and Strategy in the Unipedal Stance of Soccer Players at Different Levels of Competition. Journal of Athletic Training, 2006, 41 (2), pp.172 - 176. ⟨hal-02367213⟩