THE EFFECT OF SYNCHRONOUS MUSIC ON FUNCTIONAL LATERALITY OF THE LOWER LIMBS IN AMATEUR FOOTBALL ATHLETES: A PILOT STUDY

M. Papandreou¹, N. Mylonaki¹, E. Paraskevopoulos¹, G. Plakoutsis¹, A. Christakou², G. Koumantakis¹

¹University of West Attika, Physiotherapy, Aigaleo, Greece, ²University of Peloponnese, Physiotherapy, Sparta, Greece

Background: Several studies have reported significant biomechanical differences between kicking and performance with the dominant or preferred leg and the non-dominant or non-preferred leg in professional or amateur football players (Katis et al. 2017). However, higher linear ball and foot velocities during kicking were associated with the preferred foot (Dos’ Santos et al. 2019) In addition, it is widely recognized that intensive participation in football sports can alter bone development in the preferred leg commonly defined as dominant.
The dominance of one side of the body includes not only biomechanical alterations but also possible variations in skills related to the sense of sight and hearing ability and consequently in physical performance. Playing football while growing up can lead to the establishment of motor patterns on either the preferred or non-preferred side. However, the musical intervention could be a stimulus that could be used in the daily training of athletes and have some measurable effects on their physical performance and the functional laterality of the lower limbs. Limited studies have reported the benefits of music on functional laterality of elite or recreational athletes during training or pre-competition, and on their performance (Terry, et al. 2012; Karageorghis, 2011).

Purpose: The aim of this pilot study was to investigate the effect of synchronous music on functional laterality (FL) of the lower limbs in either the preferred or non-preferred leg in healthy amateur male football players.

Methods: 30 amateur healthy male football players aged 19–36 years were recruited for this study. They were randomly assigned to two independent groups (1st and 2nd, n= 15). All athletes were assessed subjectively for their functional laterality from the Waterloo Footedness Questionnaire-Revised (WFQR) (Elias et al. 1998) and objectively through ten activities, also, from the WFQR (Garcia et al., 2019; Van Melick et al., 2017) pre and post-musical intervention. Both groups followed the same 90'' (sec) single leg balance program on the non-preferred leg for 2 weeks X 10 blindfolded sessions prior to their training. Additionally, the 2nd group followed a pre-task 150bpm high-tempo synchronous music intervention (Karageorghis, 2011).

Results: Paired T-test showed statistically significant results in subjective (p=0.009, p ≤0.05) and objective mixed FL assessment scores (p=0.011, p ≤0.05) for the 2nd group after the music intervention. The independent samples T-test showed a statistically significant difference in the subjective mixed FL assessment scores (p= 0.031, p ≤0.05) between the groups after the music intervention.

Conclusions: The findings of this pilot study indicate the need to apply music to the lower limbs in football players prior to the training process to improve mixed functional laterality specifically for the non-preferred leg.

Implications: Music intervention should be considered as a complementary intervention in sports performance in future research to enhance psychological or physical aspects.

Funding acknowledgements: There no funding

Keywords:
pre task synchronous music
football players
lower limbs functional laterality

Topics:
Sport & sports injuries
Musculoskeletal: lower limb
Musculoskeletal

Did this work require ethics approval? Yes

Institution: University of West Attika

Committee: President Prof. Deltsidou Anna

Ethics number: 111194/10-12-2021