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Sport Sciences for Health

, Volume 15, Issue 3, pp 641–646 | Cite as

Analysis of the Christiania stop in professional roller hockey players with and without previous groin pain: a prospective case series study

  • Jacopo Antonino VitaleEmail author
  • Greta Castellini
  • Silvia Gianola
  • Elena Stucovitz
  • Giuseppe Banfi
Original Article
First Online:
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Abstract

Purpose

In skating, the sudden controlled turning and stopping can cause the overuse of muscles in the adductor region, altering the whole skating performance, causing muscular strains and, consequently, groin pain. The aim of the study was to describe the movement pattern of a group of professional athletes with previous groin pain experience compared to a no-groin pain group.

Methods

A prospective case series study design was performed. Eight male quad hockey players (four have had previous groin pain) were recruited. Players were asked to perform the Christiania stop: muscles activity patterns and lower limbs kinematics were simultaneously acquired with an optoelectronic system and infrared cameras allowing a computerized three-dimensional motion recording.

Results

Groin pain group showed lower peak values in kinematic parameters and the most frequent pattern of surface electromyography amplitude referred to adductor longus muscle, vastus medialis, tensor fascia latae and transversus abdominis. In the no-groin pain group, the most frequent pattern of surface electromyography amplitude referred to transversus abdominis, adductor, vastus medialis and tensor fascia latae.

Conclusion

Previous groin pain experience could affect the task performance by a subject’s unconscious attempt to preserve the groin area.

Keywords

Kinematics Surface electromyography Muscles Athletes 

Abbreviations

CS

Christiania stop

sEMG

Surface electromyography system

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Notes

Acknowledgements

This study was supported by the Italian Ministry of Health (Ricerca Corrente). The authors thank the Amatori Sporting Lodi players and Daniele Cella their physiotherapist for offering the opportunity to perform this study, Eng. Federica Anasetti and Eng. Alice Nardo for taking part in the technical assessment.

Compliance with ethical standards

Conflict of interest

The authors report no conflicts of interest.

Ethical approval

All research activities were approved by the Institutional Review Board (L3017, Ricerca Corrente) and were conducted in accordance to the Declaration of Helsinki.

Informed consent

Each subject provided written informed consent to participate to this study.

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Copyright information

© Springer-Verlag Italia S.r.l., part of Springer Nature 2019

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.IRCCS Istituto Ortopedico GaleazziMilanItaly
  2. 2.Vita-Salute San Raffaele UniversityMilanItaly

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