Natalie Saunders

• BEd (PhysEd)(Hons) GDip (ExRehab) PhD
• Lecturer at Deakin University

Objectives To determine if adolescents with patellofemoral pain exhibit different biomechanical characteristics to asymptomatic adolescents during walking and running. Methods Twenty‐eight adolescents with patellofemoral pain (16 male, 12 female, mean [SD] age: 14.3 [1.7] years) and 24 asymptomatic adolescents (13 male, 11 female, mean [SD] age: 1...

Objectives To determine the feasibility of conducting a large-scale randomised controlled trial on the efficacy of flat, flexible school footwear versus traditional school footwear in adolescents (aged 12–18 years) with patellofemoral pain (PFP). Methods Adolescents with PFP were recruited for this study. Participants were randomised to wear eithe...

Introduction: Treatment options for adolescent patellofemoral pain (PFP) are limited. School footwear might be a suitable intervention to modulate patellofemoral joint (PFJ) loads in adolescents with PFP. This study examined the immediate effects of a flat, flexible school shoe compared to a traditional school shoe on knee joint kinematics and kin...

Background: Adolescents are often required to wear footwear that adheres to uniform guidelines at secondary school. There is a paucity of literature on factors influencing school footwear choice and what drives the development of school footwear guidelines. The aims of this study were to describe (i) current school footwear guidelines in secondary...

Background Adolescents are often required to wear footwear that adheres to uniform guidelines at secondary school. There is a paucity of literature on factors influencing school footwear choice and what drives the development of school footwear guidelines. The aims of this study were to describe (i) current school footwear guidelines in secondary s...

Background There are limited evidence-based treatment options for adolescents with patellofemoral pain (PFP). Flat, flexible footwear have been shown to reduce patellofemoral joint loading and pain in adults with PFP. The efficacy of this intervention in adolescents with PFP is not established. The primary aim of this study is to determine the feas...

Background There are limited evidence-based treatment options for adolescents with patellofemoral pain (PFP). Flat, flexible footwear have been shown to reduce patellofemoral joint loading and pain in adults with PFP. The efficacy of this intervention in adolescents with PFP is not established. The primary aim of this study is to determine the feas...

Anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury rates in the Women's Australian Football League (AFLW) are alarmingly high. Understanding injuries within their sporting context is important to develop effective injury prevention strategies, yet there is currently little knowledge of how ACL injuries occur to AFLW players. This study addressed the common sc...

Objectives To report the medical attention and time-loss injury epidemiology of Australia's premier netball competition. Design Descriptive epidemiological study. Methods One-hundred and nineteen players in the Suncorp Super Netball league were under surveillance during three consecutive seasons (2017–2019), inclusive of pre-, in-, and post- seas...

This parallel‐groups randomised controlled trial investigated the effect of concurrent strength and endurance (CSE) training on running performance, biomechanics, and muscle activity during overground running. Thirty moderately‐trained distance runners were randomly assigned to 10‐weeks CSE training (n = 15; 33.1 ± 7.5 years) or a control group (n...

Objectives Plyometric exercises are used to prevent and rehabilitate plantarflexor injuries among runners. To facilitate exercise programming, this study compared plantarflexor musculotendon output during running to plyometric exercises in distance runners. Design Experimental study with cross-over design. Method Fourteen trained distance runners...

Anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injuries have been a rising concern in the early years of the women’s Australian Football League (AFLW), eliciting headlines of a ‘knee crisis’ surrounding the league. There has been a focus on female biology as the primary factor driving the high rate of ACL injuries in the AFLW. Emphasising Australian football (AF...

Anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injuries have been a rising concern in the early years of the women’s Australian Football League (AFLW) – eliciting headlines of a “knee crisis” surrounding the league. There has been a focus on female biology as the primary factor driving the high rate of ACL injuries in the AFLW. Emphasising Australian football as...

Background Concurrent strength and endurance (CSE) training improves distance running performance more than endurance training alone, but the mechanisms underpinning this phenomenon are unclear. It has been hypothesised that biomechanical or neuromuscular adaptations are responsible for improvements in running performance; however, evidence on this...

Field-based screening methods have a limited capacity to identify high-risk postures during netball-specific landings associated with anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injuries. This study determined the biomechanical relationship between a single-leg squat and netball-specific leap landing, to examine the utility of including a single-leg squat wit...

Background: Individual responses to anterior cruciate ligament injury prevention programmes (ACL IPPs) have received little attention. This study examined the effects of an ACL IPP on neuromuscular control and lower limb biomechanics during landing at the group and individual levels. Methods: Sixteen female athletes were randomly allocated to tr...

Objectives: To determine the feasibility of a clinical trial that compares a 6-week, physiotherapist-guided gait retraining program with a foot orthoses intervention in runners with patellofemoral pain. Design: Pilot randomised controlled trial. Methods: Runners aged 18-40 years with clinically diagnosed patellofemoral pain were randomly alloc...

Objectives To determine the effect of a combination of a minimalist shoe and increased cadence on measures of patellofemoral joint loading during running in individuals with patellofemoral pain. Design Within-participant repeated measures with four conditions presented in random order: (1) control shoe at preferred cadence; (2) control shoe with +...

Purpose: This study aimed to identify the discriminating kinematic gait characteristics between individuals with acute and chronic patellofemoral pain (PFP), and healthy controls. Methods: Ninety-eight runners with PFP (39 male, 59 female) and 98 healthy control runners (38 male, 60 female) ran on a treadmill at a self-selected speed while three...

There is currently minimal evidence from training studies that document the effectiveness of complex training to elicit gains in explosive muscle function that are greater than those obtained from a more conventional approach. Over nine weeks of training, 20 recreationally trained athletes with a minimum of one year of resistance training experienc...

Screening methods sensitive to movement strategies that increase anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) loads are likely to be effective in identifying athletes at-risk of ACL injury. Current ACL injury risk screening methods are yet to be evaluated for their ability to identify athletes' who exhibit high-risk lower limb mechanics during sport-specific m...

Background: Laboratory-based measures provide an accurate method to identify risk factors for anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury; however, these methods are generally prohibitive to the wider community. Screening methods that can be completed in a field or clinical setting may be more applicable for wider community use. Examination of field-b...

INTRODUCTION Screening methods that identify those at-risk of suffering an anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury are vital for the development of targeted ACL injury prevention strategies. The majority of ACL injury risk screening methods [1-3] utilise simplistic bilateral landing tasks, which have been shown to not adequately represent sport-spe...

INTRODUCTION Screening methods that identify those at-risk of suffering an anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury are vital for the development of targeted ACL injury prevention strategies. Field-based screening methods offer a simplistic and accessible method to identify dysfunction that may lead to injury. The Landing Error Scoring System (LESS)...

Netball is a sport characterised by sharp changes-of-direction to break free from opponents. The ability of players to use changes-of-direction to evade opponents is, therefore, an important aspect of attacking play. The purpose of this study was to examine the performance and outcomes of offensive agility techniques utilised by netball players. Of...

It has been proposed that the performance of athletic tasks where normal motion is exceeded has the potential to damage the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL). Determining the expected or 'normal' kinematic profile of athletic tasks commonly used to assess ACL injury risk can provide an evidence base for the identification of abnormal or anomalous ta...

This case report examined the neuromuscular function of a competitive female netball player six days prior to an incident where she sustained an acute anterior cruciate ligament injury during normal sports activity. Electromyography was used to examine activation onsets of four lower limb muscles (rectus femoris, biceps femoris, medial hamstrings a...

Non-contact landings have been identified as a common activity associated with injury in netball. Investigating injury risk factors during landing via laboratory-based analysis warrants the performance of sportspecific landing tasks with the inclusion of “game- like” factors to enhance ecological validity of testing protocols. Understanding how pla...

Introduction: The development of appropriate screening tools to identify those at-risk of ACL injury would aid in facilitating targeted prevention strategies. Laboratory based measures currently identify individuals with predisposing risk factors for ACL injury, yet these are generally prohibitive to the wider community. Field-based screening tools...

This study compared conventional, complex and contrast protocols on peak power (PP) output. Static versus dynamic contractions were also manipulated to determine the effect of these confounding variables. Eighteen recreationally-trained males (age = 21.1 ± 3.3yrs; body mass = 81.7 ± 15.9kg; height= 182.8 ± 6.2cm; 5RM ½ back squat = 119.2 ± 25.4kg;...

In elite sport, to remain competitive at the international level, it is critical to understand the game demands on players to ensure sport specific training programmes are designed for optimal athlete preparation and conditioning. In netball, recent research examining the activity patterns of players at the elite level is lacking, with only one stu...

Coaches play a major role in encouraging and ensuring that participants of their teams adopt appropriate safety practices. However, the extent to which the coaches undertake this role will depend upon their attitudes about injury prevention, their perceptions of what the other coaches usually do and their own beliefs about how much control they hav...

Coaches play a major role in encouraging and ensuring that participants of their teams adopt appropriate safety practices. However, the extent to which the coaches undertake this role will depend upon their attitudes about injury prevention, their perceptions of what the other coaches usually do and their own beliefs about how much control they hav...

Behavioural factors and beliefs are important determinants of the adoption of sports injury interventions. This study aimed to understand behavioural factors associated with junior community netball players' intentions to learn correct landing technique during coach-led training sessions, proposed as a means of reducing their risk of lower limb inj...

Objective: Behavioural factors and beliefs are important determinants of the adoption of sports injury interventions. This study aimed to understand behavioural factors associated with junior community netball players' intentions to learn correct landing technique during coach-led training sessions, proposed as a means of reducing their risk of low...

Given the escalating drought conditions in Australia, synthetic surfaces have recently been explored as a viable surface option for community-level Australian football-cricket ovals. The vast majority of Australian football ovals are transformed into cricket pitches during the football off-season and hence the characteristics of both sports had to...

Test procedures and their accuracy in determining critical fall height (CFH) on sporting grounds are paramount to player safety. The procedure currently adopted for synthetic turf in Australian football [1] consists of four consecutive drops at various drop heights at three test locations on the sample. The quantity and packing of the infill in thi...

For effective sports injury prevention, information is needed about the implementation context for interventions. This study describes coaches' feedback on the implementation of an evidence-informed injury prevention programme in community junior netball using coaches' perceptions and the RE-AIM framework. A lower-limb injury prevention programme (...