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PhD Academy Award
What goes up must come down: injury and jumping in professional ballet (PhD Academy Award)
  1. Adam Mattiussi1,2,3
  1. 1 Faculty of Sport, Allied Health and Performance Science, St Mary's University Twickenham, Twickenham, UK
  2. 2 Ballet Healthcare, Royal Opera House, London, UK
  3. 3 Performance Rehabilitation, UK Sports Institute, Bisham, UK
  1. Correspondence to Dr Adam Mattiussi, Performance Rehabilitation, UK Sports Institute, Bisham, UK; Mattiussi.adam{at}gmail.com

https://doi.org/10.1136/bjsports-2024-108238

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    What did I do?

    The aims of this thesis were split into three sections, each containing two studies (figure 1). Section one aimed to describe injury epidemiology within a professional ballet company and systematically review jumping biomechanics in ballet dancers. Section two aimed to establish the reliability of lower extremity isometric force tests, and ankle mechanics and vertical ground reaction forces (vGRF) during jump landings in professional ballet dancers. Section three aimed to investigate the determinants of ankle mechanics and vGRFs during jump landings in professional ballet dancers.

    Figure 1

    An overview of the key findings of the thesis. BW, body weight; ICC, intraclass correlation coefficient; ROM, range of motion; vGRF, vertical ground reaction forces.

    Why did I do it?

    The biomechanics of jumping in ballet is an area of growing interest due to the associated risk of injury.1 It is well understood that a high rate of complex and technical jumping is commonplace in ballet.2 3 Ballet technique requires extreme lower extremity external rotation, relatively upright postures and jumps may require gestures, beats and rotations.4 To that end, ballet technique influences the movement affordances available to a dancer while jumping, potentially increasing the load the system or specific joints are exposed to compared with traditional jumping. Calls have been made to investigate jumping in …

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    Footnotes

    • X @adammattiussi

    • Contributors This PhD Academy Award is a summary of AM’s PhD thesis. AM is the sole author of this submission.

    • Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.