The immediate effect of a balance wobble board protocol on knee and ankle joint position sense in female soccer players

Background: Lower limb injuries are widely recognized as the most prevalent injuries among female soccer players. Joint position sense plays a vital role in muscle reflexes, joint stability dynamics, and movement planning for neuromuscular control. Decreased accuracy in joint position sense can be considered an internal injury risk factor. Objective: The current study aims to investigate the immediate effect of a short-term balance protocol with a wobble board on knee and ankle joint position sense. Methods: Forty female participants were recruited and then randomly allocated into two groups: balance training (BTR; n = 20, age 23.50 ± 1.50 years) and control (CON; n = 20, age 23.10 ± 1.77 years). Knee and ankle joint reconstruction errors were measured using a gyroscope at 60° of knee flexion and 30° of ankle plantarflexion. Following this, the BTR group participated in a short-term balance protocol (one session). Immediately following training and then one hour later, the reconstruction error was measured in both groups. Results: A mixed-repeated measures analysis of variance demonstrated that for the BTR group, the absolute angular error (AAE) before and after intervention decreased by 2.14° and 2.95° in the knee (p = .001) and ankle (p = .001) joints, respectively. In addition, an hour after intervention, the AAE remained below the initial value in the two joints (p = .001). Specifically, in the CON group, the AAE in the knee joint did not show a significant decrease, and similarly, no significant change was observed in the AAE in the ankle joint, and also an hour after the intervention. Conclusions: A wobble board training session may stimulate the sensory receptors of the knee and ankle joints of female amateur soccer players and increased joint position sense accuracy and is present one hour post intervention.