SUMMARY
Proprioceptive mechanisms appear to play a role in stabilizing the joints and may serve as a means for interplay between the static stabilizers and the dynamic
muscle restraints. The purpose of this study was to compare the joint position sense and ankle balance pattern between trained gymnasts and healthy nongymnasts.
We evaluated the proprioceptive ability of the ankle with four different tests (one-leg-standing test, a single-limb-hopping test, an active angle-reproduction
test, and passive angle-reproduction test). Ankle proprioception was measured in 40 subjects who were assigned to two experimental groups: Group 1 (n=20),
control group, and group 2 (n = 20), teenage female gymnasts. Joint position sense was actively measured with a Cybex NORMTM isokinetic dynamometer and
passively with a proprioception testing device. A Mann-Whitney U test was used to compare the mean values of the gymnastic ankles with the control ankle. Results
revealed statistically significant differences (p