Abstract
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This study aimed to determine whether the landing phase of a drop landing (DL) differed with respect to a complete jumping and landing task, a spike jump (SJ), and whether fatigue altered the landing of these movements. Fourteen male volleyball players performed five DL and SJ in a counterbalanced order under two experimental conditions: non-fatigued and fatigued. Fatigue, induced by repetitive
jumping sets, was confirmed by decrements in vertical jump height 425% and increased blood lactate 46 mmol/L. Each landing task was characterized by the resultant ground reaction forces (GRF), sagittal plane kinematics and muscle recruitment patterns of six lower extremity muscles. Twoway repeated analysis of variance results indicated a main effect of movement on many of the GRF, kinematic and
electromyographic variables characterizing landing, indicating that the two tasks required substantially different lower limb biomechanics during landing. Although fatigue did not alter the GRF in either task, there were significant movement fatigue condition interactions. The significant between-task differences in the biomechanical variables characterizing landing and the differential effects of fatigue
on each landing task, question the validity of using a DL as an experimental task to investigate lower limb landing mechanics of whole jumping and landing movements.