THE ECOLOGICAL VALIDITY OF INJURY PREVENTION SCREENINGMEASURES USED TO IDENTIFY PELVIC INSTABILITY IN ELITE MALE SPRINTERS

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to ascertain the ecological validity of clinical measures of pelvic stability currently used in injury prevention programs with elite sprinters. Fifteen elite male sprinters of National level participated in this study. Each participant completed 3 trials for two clinical measures of pelvic stability, the standing hip f1exion and dip tests, followed by 3 maximal sprints. A significant moderate correlation coefficient (r =.46, P < .05) was found between the pelvic list data for the hip f1exion test and the pelvic list data for sprinting. Weak non-significant correlation coefficients (r < .23), however, were found for the remaining data. These findings suggest the current clinical measures of pelvic stability may not be ecologically valid.