Static balancing assessment is often complemented with dynamic balancing tasks. Numerous dynamic balancing assessment methods have been developed in recent decades with their corresponding balancing devices and tasks. The aim of this systematic literature review is to identify and categorize existing objective methods of standing dynamic balancing ability assessment with an emphasis on the balancing devices and tasks being used. Three major scientific literature databases (Science Direct, Web of Science, PLoS ONE) and additional sources were used. Studies had to use a dynamic balancing device and a task described in detail. Evaluation had to be based on objectively measureable parameters. Functional tests without instrumentation evaluated exclusively by a clinician were excluded. A total of 63 articles were included. The data extracted during full-text assessment were: author and date; the balancing device with the balancing task and the measured parameters; the health conditions, size, age and sex of participant groups; and follow-up measurements. A variety of dynamic balancing assessment devices were identified and categorized as 1) Solid ground, 2) Balance board, 3) Rotating platform, 4) Horizontal translational platform, 5) Treadmill, 6) Computerized Dynamic Posturography, and 7) Other devices. The group discrimination ability of the methods was explored and the conclusions of the studies were briefly summarized. Due to the wide scope of this search, it provides an overview of balancing devices and do not represent the state-of-the-art of any single method. The identified dynamic balancing assessment methods are offered as a catalogue of candidate methods to complement static assessments used in studies involving postural control.

We conducted a review to collect the validated basketball-specific physical field tests and to provide practical advice for their appropriate selection and application. A comprehensive electronic literature search was performed via three electronic databases (PubMed, GoogleScholar, and SportDiscuss). Results of 93 studies provided recommendations for seven test packages and eighteen individual tests that have already been validated for basketball players. Although there is a lack of standardized, widely, and systematically used test protocols for testing the fitness levels of basketball players, standardized, normative data from NBA Combine Testing and other basketball-specific tests have the potential to help coaches compare their players with elite basketball players. Our review indicated that agility and reactive agility are fundamental skills in basketball; however, linear sprinting ability should not be considered a determining factor of success for basketball players. Finally, the countermovement jump test can help experts monitor fatigue, loss of explosive force, and interlimb asymmetries. In general, we found that identifying and developing a talented player is a complex task and requires experts from different fields, including trainers, coaches, performance- and movement analyzers, and physiotherapists. We found that during the testing of basketball players, experts always have to normalize their data with anthropometric measures for valid results. Most importantly, although experts always need to define an aim of testing and should follow the protocol of the chosen test, they also have to be open to making adjustments if the actual circumstances require it.

Basketball is one of the most popular team sports in the world. A wide variety of athletic skills can be valuable indicators of a talented player. Testing these skills help trainers and scouts to make the best decisions during both youth and adult player selection of different competitive levels and field positions. However, scientific data regarding the association between field tests results and match statistics is sparse. We conducted a systematic review to logically summarize the physical field tests of athletic abilities and anthropometric measures used in basketball in different player positions at different levels, and to determine whether test results may correlate with match statistics. A comprehensive electronic literature search was performed via three electronic databases (PubMed, GoogleScholar, SportDiscus). The CASP checklist was used for checking the quality of reporting for all included articles. Based on 39 studies, it could be supported that the agility, speed and jumping test values seem to be crucial measures for basketball players. Anthropometry appeared to be the strongest discriminative factor between basketball positions, therefore, these values need to be significantly considered during selection. Moreover, the maturity status is also an important influencing factor for U-18 teams. In general, we found that successful players can be identified by their nonplanned agility and reactive power, considering that these factors affect match outcomes the most at the same competitive level.

The standing human body is frequently modeled as an inverted double pendulum restricted to a single plane. In order to capture the coordination efforts and interplay between spatial dimensions, the model has to capture motion and joint torques in all spatial dimensions. Our two-segment model covers two degrees of freedom (ML and AP revolutions) at the ankle and the hip level and utilizes the Denavit-Hartenberg convention. This work aimed to validate the model's torque estimation on a diverse group of participants (11 women, 22–56 years, 11 men, 22–61 years). The inverse dynamic calculations provide estimated joint torques for a motion capture recorded trial, while standing on a force platform enables the indirect measurement of ankle torques. A 60-second-long visually guided balancing task was recorded and repeated three times. The estimated and the indirectly measured torques were compared, and offset and variance type errors ( normalized RMSE and R2 ) were analyzed. The R2-values were excellent (R2 > 0.90) 64 out of the 66 cases (97%) for AP torques and 58 out of the 66 cases (88%) for ML torques. Normalized RMSE values were dominantly under the 0.35 value with some outliers. RMSE showed no evident connection with age, body height, body mass, or BMI. An open-chain kinematic model with two segments, following the Denavit-Hartenberg convention, is well suited to estimate the control torque traces of the human body during standing balancing and needs only three tracked positions.

Vision plays a fundamental role in the control of human locomotion, including walking gait. Given that side-dominance is associated with differences in motor control, the present study aimed to determine if patches obscuring half of the visual field affect left- and right-side dominant individuals’ gait kinematics and accompanying leg muscle activation differently. Healthy right- (n = 15, age = 28.2 ± 5.5 years) and left-side (n = 9, age = 27.9 ± 5.8 years) dominant participants performed 10 min of walking trials on a treadmill at a self-selected speed with 5 min of rest between three randomized trials, i.e., wearing clear glasses or glasses with left-or right half-field eye patching. In addition to a set of spatiotemporal and kinematic gait parameters, the average activity during the separated gait cycle phases, and the start and end of muscle activation in % of the gait cycle were calculated from five muscles in three muscle groups. Our results indicate that gait kinematics of left- and right-side dominant participants were similar both in their dominant and non-dominant legs, regardless of half-field eye patching condition. On the other hand, inter-group differences were found in selected kinematic variables. For instance, in addition to larger but less variable step width, our results suggest larger ankle and knee ROM in right- vs. left-sided participants. Furthermore, medial gastrocnemius and biceps femoris muscle activation showed selected differences at certain phases of the gait cycle between participants’ dominant and non-dominant legs. However, it was also unaffected by the half-field eye patching condition. Moreover, the endpoint of medial gastrocnemius activation was affected by side-dominance, i.e., its activation ended earlier in the non-dominant leg of right- as compared to left-side dominant participants. Our results suggest no major differences in walking gait kinematics and accompanying muscle activation between half-field eye patching conditions in healthy adults; nevertheless, side-dominance may affect biomechanical and neuromuscular control strategies during walking gait.

Dynamic balancing abilities can be assessed with perturbation tests. The present study examined the effectiveness of balancing (damping ratio) and the recovery action (directional ratio) in bipedal and dominant single-leg stance in the young population. Twenty-four healthy young adult participants completed unidirectional lateral perturbations successfully using a Posturomed© platform (Haider Bioswing, Germany). Single-leg stances had similar damping scores (p = 0.551) to and lower directional ratio values (p = 0.002) than bipedal recoveries. This shows that different recovery actions can achieve similar effectiveness in the two stances. A test evaluation methodology that simultaneously utilises performance and motion characteristic parameters was demonstrated.