Immediate effect of iliopsoas muscle myofascial release on postural stability in standing posture in female futsal athletes

Abstract

Introduction: Myofascial release is a technique that involves applying a slow and continuous compressive stretch to the myofascial complex. This technique has been of potential interest in sports for the prevention of injuries and rehabilitation of the function of the iliopsoas, a muscle normally injured in football players. Although myofascial release brings benefits to functional performance, such as increasing range of motion, reducing myofascial pain and improving postural balance, the effect of this technique applied to the iliopsoas on neuromuscular performance is still little explored. Objective: To investigate the immediate effect of the iliopsoas muscle myofascial release technique on postural stability in orthostatic posture in female futsal athletes. Methods: Non-randomized clinical trial (before and after type; CAAE: 64886422.9.0000.5235) with a sample of 32 participants. The volunteers performed a manual therapy session lasting an average of 5 minutes, involving 15 applications of slow and continuous compressive stretching to the iliopsoas muscle bilaterally. Participants were assessed before and after the intervention. In the evaluation protocol, each volunteer was instructed to remain in an orthostatic posture with their arms at their sides and barefoot on a baropodometric platform during four postural tasks of 60 seconds each, involving the manipulation of the support base and visual information: i) feet apart with eyes open (OA); ii) feet apart with eyes closed (OF); iii) united feet with OA; iv) feet united with OF. The foot center of pressure (CP) signal was collected (sampling frequency: 100Hz) and analyzed using the variables: standard deviation and speed of body oscillations in the medio-lateral (ML) and antero-posterior (AP) bones. In the statistical analysis, separately for support base configuration, the analysis of variance (ANOVA) test was used for repeated samples, with the time factor (before and after) as intra-group and the visual condition (OA and OF) as an intergroup factor, followed by the Bonferroni post-hoc and a significance level of 5%. Results: In the feet apart configuration, ANOVA revealed an interaction between Time and Visual Condition for the parameters standard deviation ML (F=7.067, p=0.010;) and mean speed ML (F=7.785, p=0.007;) with differences between OA and OF before applying the intervention (p<0.05). A main effect of Time was observed for sway area (F=21.698, p<0.001;), AP standard deviation (F=17.379, p<0.001;) and mean AP velocity (F=17.522, p<0.001;), with lower values after applying the intervention (p<0.001). In the feet together configuration, the ANOVA revealed a main effect of Time for the sway area (F=6.056, p=0.016), standard deviation AP (F=10.125, p=0.002) and ML (F=39.612, p<0.001), with lower post-intervention values for these parameters (p<0.05; Figure 2A). Furthermore, a main effect of Visual Condition (F=4.593, p=<0.036) was observed for the sway area parameter, with a smaller sway
area in the eyes open condition than eyes closed (Figure 2A). For average speed (Figure 2B), differences were observed between pre- and post-intervention (AP: F=4.506, p=0.037, ML: F=8.266, p=0.005) and Visual condition (AP: F=10.106, p =0.002, ML: F=9.708, p=0.003), with a reduction in the magnitude of the parameters after using the intervention and lower values in the OA condition (p<0.05). Conclusion: The main results suggest that iliopsoas myofascial release reduces CP oscillation amplitude and the difference in oscillation variability (AP) between OA and OF conditions. Implications: Since reducing body oscillations appears to be beneficial for
maintaining postural balance, myofascial release of the iliopsoas may offer benefits to the motor performance of football players.