This study tested whether proprioceptive discrimination of movement is a global, general ability, or an attribute that is specific to the joint tested. 40 right-handed, healthy, young adults (19 men, 21 women; M age = 20.4 yr., SD = 1.7) volunteered. A battery of versions of the Active Movement Extent Discrimination Apparatus (AMEDA) were employed to generate the stimuli for movements of different extents at the ankle, knee, spine, shoulder, and finger; discrimination accuracy scores were derived from participants' responses. No significant correlations were found between the discrimination scores from the five sites (all rs ≤ .21, all ps ≥ .20). This finding extends a previous report of non-significantly correlated proprioception test scores at two lower limb sites, and the findings taken together suggest that rather than proprioception being a global, general ability, sensitivity to the proprioception that underlies movement control is site-specific.

Investigate the patterns and circumstances of shoulder injury, in both male and female sub-elite water polo players, through evaluating the injury incidence, mechanism and subsequent training time lost. Retrospective cohort. Sports institute. 80 sub-elite water polo players. Total injury number and incidence, mechanism of injury, lost training time and time from injury onset to seeking treatment. For the athlete self-report data set (2009-2013), 218 total injuries were reported with 54 (25%) being shoulder injuries. From 2014 to 2016, 133 physiotherapist-report injuries were recorded, the shoulder accounting for 21 (16%) of total injuries. The shoulder was the most frequently injured site and accounted for 25% of lost training days. Two thirds of shoulder injuries were due to overuse (67%). The average time between sustaining a shoulder injury and presenting to the team physiotherapist was 10 days. Irrespective of data collection method, shoulder injuries were the most common injury for both male and female sub-elite water polo players. Future injury prevention strategies could address overuse through optimising throwing volumes, and include athlete education about injury management to determine whether reducing time delay between injury occurrence and seeking treatment improves outcomes.

Objective: Assessing the effects of ankle injury and sport participation level on ankle proprioceptive sensitivity using a joint position reproduction (JPR) test and an inversion movement extent discrimination test. Design: Cross-sectional. Setting: Biomechanics lab. Participants: Forty-five student athletes ages 21–30 (mean = 24.8 y). Main Outcome Measures: Participants were tested for ankle inversion sensitivity using 2 devices; movement reproduction error was obtained from JPR in a non-weight-bearing (N-WB) state at 10° and 15° of inversion, and an ankle proprioceptive sensitivity score was obtained from the active movement extent discrimination apparatus (AMEDA), representing the ability to differentiate 5 inversion movement extents between 10.5° and 14.5°, with testing in both N-WB and weight-bearing (WB) states. Results: For the 34 athletes with no ankle injury in the previous 12 months, the sensitivity scores achieved on the AMEDA were significantly higher (P < .01) than those for the 11 athletes with ankle injury, and the injury effect was significantly greater in WB (P = .01). In JPR testing, the 2.96° error of reproduction for athletes with no recent ankle injury was not significantly different from the 3.36° error for those with ankle injury (P = .46). Correlation of current sport participation level with JPR showed less error for higher-level performers (r = .49, P = .001) but no significant relationship to WB or N-WB AMEDA scores (both P > .61). WB AMEDA scores were significantly higher for athletes who had competed at a higher level of sport competition when <18 years old (r = −.57, P < .001). Conclusions: Previous ankle sprains affected proprioceptive scores on the WB AMEDA and N-WB AMEDA tests, indicating the sensitivity of the AMEDA movement discrimination test to the effects of ankle injury. The correlation between JPR scores and current level of sport participation suggests the sensitivity of the JPR test to current ankle use.

Opportunities for ball passing in water-polo may be brief and the decision to pass only informed by minimal visual input. Since researchers using point light displays have shown that the walking or running gait of familiars can be identified, water-polo players may have the ability to recognize team-mates from their swimming gait. To test this hypothesis, members of a water-polo team and a competition swim team viewed two randomized sets of video clips, each less than one second long, of swimmers from both teams sprinting freestyle past a fixed camera. The arm stroke clip sequence showed only the upper body, and the kick sequence showed only the lower body. After viewing each video clip, observers rated their level of certainty as to whether the swimmer presented was a team-mate or not. Discrimination was significantly above chance in both groups. Water-polo players were better able to identify team-mates from their kick, whereas swimmers were better able to do so by viewing arm stroke. Our results suggest that, as with walking and running gait, small amounts of visual information about swimmers can be used for recognition, and so raise the possibility that specific training may be able to improve team-mate classification in water-polo, particularly in newly formed teams.