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Abstract

Athletes attend to various sport-related stimuli when competing in their sports. These stimuli can be either visual or auditory in nature and can arise from game strategy, time of game, movement of objects, opponents and teammates. Many lower limb injuries, especially anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injuries, occur when completing a landing task and risk of injury can be heightened by divided attention. PURPOSE: This study aimed to investigate the effect of secondary cognitive tasks on landing biomechanics. METHODS: Seventeen recreational athletes performed single-leg drop landing on their dominant leg in three different conditions; 1) auditory basic arithmetic, 2) visual basic arithmetic, and 3) a control landing task that consisted of no arithmetic. Lower limb biomechanics were measured using a 10 camera 3D motion analysis system combined with two force plates. Nine dependent variables associated with ACL injury risk were analyzed through repeated-measures ANOVA tests. RESULTS: There were no significant differences between task conditions except for peak knee extension moment, which was significantly greater in the single task condition compared to both of the dual task conditions. CONCLUSION: These findings suggest that secondary cognitive tasks involving basic arithmetic, provided by both visual and audio means, do not significantly increase biomechanical risk factors associated with ACL injury.

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