This week we discuss knee and ankle strength demands during deceleration tasks. The biggest takeaway is that from a short acceleration, 5 meters, both knee and ankle strength were significantly correlated to deceleration performance. However, with a 10 meter accelereation, knee extension strength variables were the only ones to relate to deceleration performance. This was a great discussion about constraining environments for deceleration and isokinetic testing, to possible ankle exercises to address deceleration.

The abstract can be found here: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39882763/

As always, if you enjoy what you hear, be sure to follow us on your favorite podcast platform and on Instagram @readingrehabpod. If you have any article recommendations be sure to send them our way!

Data Nerds is a new series that we are introducing which will be alternating weeks with our usual journal club podcast. In this series, we share cases from our clinical practice where we utilize objective testing to inform our decision making, with most attention paid to the results of the tests and interpretation of the information. Therefore, this works best when you can see the numbers. Luckily, these are uploaded to our YouTube channel! Check us out at https://www.youtube.com/@ReadingRehab.

In this episode, Bryan Gardner and Roy Krishnan, owner of Liquid Sports Lab in Rochester, New York, talk about a case of a D3 baseball pitcher returning to pitching after an ACL tear. Bryan talks us through his range of motion and strength data while Roy goes over his pitching biomechanical data from markerless motion capture AI!

Roy is a former data analyst and sport scientist for the Dallas Mavericks and Toronto Raptors. You can learn more about him and Liquid Sports Lab here: https://liquidsportslab.com

This week we discuss limiters for rapid force production, specifically muscle slack. This narrative review breaks down the 6 processes that happen when contracting a muscle, and focus on the areas of potential delay. Muscles that do not have any pretension must first take up slack before being able to exert force, which could increase a mechanical delay time up to 100 milliseconds. This is important because a powerful action takes less than 300 milliseconds, and the athlete that can exert force quicker is going to have better performance. The authors talk through 3 strategies to reduce muscle slack by pretensioning: a countermovement, use of external load, and agonist/antagonist co-contraction. However, co-contraction is likely the most viable strategy in most athletic contexts. Therefore, practitioners may want to cue for or constrain movement so there is co-contraction. Listen to the episode to hear some strategies we use clinically to limit muscle slack!

The abstract can be found here: https://journals.lww.com/nsca-scj/fulltext/2016/10000/influence_of_muscle_slack_on_high_intensity_sport.7.aspx

As always, if you enjoy what you hear, be sure to follow us on your favorite podcast platform and on Instagram @readingrehabpod. If you have any article recommendations be sure to send them our way!