THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN STATIC POSTURE AND ACL INJURY IN FEMALE ATHLETES

Female participation in athletics has increased dramatically over the last decade. Accompanying the increase in participation in sports is t he increase incidence of anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury. The purpose of this study was to examine the correlation between static po stural faults in female athletes and the prevalence of noncontact ACI injury. Twenty ACI-injured females and 20 age-matched controls were ev aluated. Seven variables were measured: standing pelvic position, hip position, standing sagittal knee position, standing frontal knee posit ion, hamstring length, prone subtalar joint position, and navicular dr op lest. A conditional step-wise logistic regression analysis revealed the factors of knee recurvatum, an excessive navicular drop, and exce ssive subtalar joint pronation to be significant discriminators betwee n the ACI-injured and noninjured groups. These findings may have impli cations regarding rehabilitation techniques in physical therapy.