Whilst the measurement and quantification of vertical leg stiffness (
Kvert) asymmetry is of important practical relevance to athletic performance, literature investigating bilateral asymmetry in
Kvert is limited. Moreover, how the type of task used to assess
Kvert may affect the expression of asymmetry has not been properly determined. Twelve healthy males performed three types of performance tasks on a dual force plate system to determine
Kvert asymmetries; the tasks were (a) bilateral hopping, (b) bilateral drop jumping and (c) unilateral drop jumping. Across all the three methods,
Kvert was significantly different between compliant and stiff limbs (
P < 0.001) with a significant interaction effect between limb and method (
P = 0.005). Differences in
Kvert between compliant and stiff limbs were ?5.3% (
P < 0.001), ?21.8% (
P = 0.007) and ?15.1% (
P < 0.001) for the bilateral hopping, bilateral drop jumping and unilateral drop jumping methods, respectively. All the three methods were able to detect significant differences between compliant and stiff limbs, and could be used as a diagnostic tool to assess
Kvert asymmetry. Drop jumping tasks detected larger
Kvert asymmetries than hopping, suggesting that asymmetries may be expressed to a greater extent in acyclic, maximal performance tasks.
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