Athletic groin pain patients and healthy athletes demonstrate consistency in their movement strategy selection when performing multiple repetitions of a change of direction test

Objectives: To report the consistency in movement strategy selection in athletic groin pain patients and to assess whether there are differences in consistency between athletic groin pain patients and healthy athletes. Design: Cross sectional exploratory study. Methods: Twenty athletic groin pain patients and 21 healthy athletes performed 15 repetitions of 110° change of direction task. Lower limb and trunk kinematics alongside ground reaction forces were collected. A correlation-to-mean algorithm was used to allocate each trial to a movement strategy using kinematic and kinetic features. Mann–Whitney U tests were used to compare the frequency of the most selected strategy (i.e. consistency) and fuzziness between athletic groin pain patients and healthy athletes. Chi-squared tests were used to compare the strategy selection between athletic groin pain patients and healthy athletes. Results: There were no differences between groups in consistency in movement strategy selection (>80%). Athletic groin pain patients tended to select a knee dominant movement strategy whereas healthy athletes preferred an ankle dominant movement strategy. Conclusions: The consistency observed in athletic groin pain patients supports the implementation of movement strategy assessments to inform AGP rehabilitation programmes tailored to athletes’ deficiencies. Such assessments could help enhance the success of athletic groin pain rehabilitation. Differences in movement strategy selection might not be associated with injury state since there were no differences between athletic groin pain patients and healthy athletes.