Dynamic Stability in Gymnasts, Non-Balance Athletes, and Active Controls

Gymnastics by nature is a balance sport requiring both static and dynamic stability. To our knowledge, the center of pressure (COP) movement of collegiate gymnasts has not been compared to other collegiate athletes and healthy controls during static and dynamic postural stability tasks. Our purpose was to investigate static and dynamic stability in collegiate gymnasts, non-gymnast athletes and non-athlete controls. Data were collected on female university gymnasts (n=10), university athletes in other sports (n=10), and active non-athlete controls (n=10). Static balance was measured using a commercially available six-condition static test and dynamic plantar/dorsiflexion perturbation test. Static stability variables included: mediolateral and anteroposterior COP sway, total COP displacement, average COP velocity, and standard deviation of vertical force. Dynamic perturbation variables included: initial COP sway, total COP sway, and sway velocity. A two factor ANOVA was performed (group x condition) on each variable (a=0.05) in each assessment. Significant differences were found between the groups for mediolateral COP sway (gymnasts