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Background: Analysis of upper extremity weight bearing ability is important for athletes as some function largely in a closed chain capacity (e.g., wrestling, football, gymnastics); also, all require closed chain upper extremity function during strength and conditioning. Additionally, in a rehabilitation setting, closed chain upper extremity functional testing is often used as a return to play criterion. Lower extremity sway measures (biomechanical and clinical) have been published widely and have established reliability and validity; however, the reliability of upper extremity sway biomechanical measures has not been investigated to date., Hypothesis/purpose: The purpose of this study was to determine the repeatability of a variety of force plate measurements during an upper extremity task in an athletic population. It was hypothesized that variables measuring upper extremity sway in a closed kinetic chain position would have excellent reliability., Study Design: Cross-sectional., Methods: All data were collected using a force plate system with commercially available software. Four hundred and ninety healthy Division I athletes were tested for both their dominant and non-dominant upper extremity at one of two testing sessions. Subjects were instructed to stay as still as possible while maintaining a full plank position with one upper extremity on the force plate and the contralateral upper extremity behind their back. Two, 20-second trials were performed for each extremity. Variables measured included average sway velocity (ASV), sway velocity in medial-lateral (SVML) and anterior-posterior (SVAP) directions, sway velocity at 1 st and 2 nd time intervals for AP (VAP1 and 2) and ML (VML1 and 2) directions, and sway frequency in the AP direction for 1 st and 2 nd time intervals (FreAP1 and 2). Intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC (2,1) ) and their 95% confident intervals were calculated for all force plate variables for 980 limbs., Results: No difference was seen between left and right extremities for any measure ( p  > 0.05). ICC's ranged from 0.61-0.90 for all variables, indicating moderate to excellent reliability for all variables., Conclusion: Upper extremity sway biomechanical variables using a force plate system have moderate to excellent reliability. These results are important prior to validation and clinical utilization of these measures including baseline testing, return to play guidelines, and injury prevention parameters., Level of Evidence: 3., (© 2020 by the Sports Physical Therapy Section.)

Background: Relationships between core stability and lower extremity injuries have been described in the literature; however, evidence of the relationship between upper extremity injuries and core stability and balance is limited., Hypothesis/purpose: The purpose of this study was to compare clinical measures of core stability and balance between athletes with and without non-traumatic shoulder injuries., Study Design: Cross sectional., Methods: Eighty athletes (54 males, age: 21.2 + 3.3 years) participated in this study. Forty athletes with a current shoulder injury were matched to healthy athletes by age, gender, BMI, and sport. Athletes completed clinical core stability tests including flexor and extensor endurance tests, double leg lower test (°) and balance tests including single leg stance under eyes open and eyes closed conditions, and the Y-balance test. MANOVAs were used to assess group differences., Results: No statistically significant differences existed between athletes with and without shoulder injuries for clinical tests of core stability, F(1,78)=0.97, p=0.41; η2 = 0.04. No statistically significant differences existed between injured athletes with and without shoulder injuries for static and dynamic balance measures, F(1,78)=0.86, p=0.53; η2 = 0.07., Conclusions: Although core stability is widely incorporated in rehabilitation of athletes with shoulder injuries, performance on these clinical tests did not differ in the group of athletes assessed in this study., Level of Evidence: 3.