OBJECTIVE: To determine the effect of a novel movement strategy incorporated within a soccer warm-up on biomechanical risk factors for anterior cruciate ligament injury during 3 sport-specific movement tasks. DESIGN: Single-blind, randomized controlled clinical trial. SETTING: Laboratory setting. PARTICIPANTS: Twenty top-tier female teenage soccer players. INTERVENTIONS: Subjects were randomized to the core position and control movement strategy (core-PAC) warm-up or standard warm-up, which took place before their regular soccer practice over a 6-week period. The core-PAC focuses on getting the centre of mass closer to the plant foot or base of support. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Peak knee flexion angle and abduction moments during a side-hop (SH), side-cut, and unanticipated side-cut task after the 6 weeks with (intervention group only) and without a reminder to use the core-PAC strategy. RESULTS: The core-PAC group increased peak flexion angles during the SH task (mean difference 6.2 degrees; 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.9 to 10.5 degrees; effect size 1.01; p = 0.034) after the 6-week warm-up program without a reminder. In addition, the core-PAC group demonstrated increased knee flexion angles for the side-cut (mean difference 8.5 degrees; 95% CI 4.8 to 12.2 degrees; ES 2.02; p = 0.001) and SH (mean difference 10.0 degrees; 95% CI 5.7 to 14.3 degrees; ES 1.66; p = 0.001) task after a reminder. No changes in abduction moments were found. CONCLUSIONS: The results of this study suggest that the core-PAC may be one method of modifying high-risk soccer-specific movements and can be implemented within a practical, team-based soccer warm-up. The results should be interpreted with caution because of the small sample size.
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