The acute effect of static stretching of Quadriceps, Hamstrings and Gastrocnemius muscles on knee joint position sense in Football players

purpose: everything that impairs joint proprioception system can harm joints. it has been statedthat stretching exercises can change properties of the proprioceptive receptors and as a resultchanges the sensibility of the joints proprioception. due to fact that static stretching has greateruse between athletes, it is necessary to give useful information about the safety of these stretchingexercises and their effect on knee joint position sense. therefore, the purpose of this study wasto determine the effect of static stretching of selected muscles around knee on knee joint positionsense in football players. methods: this study was a quasi-experimental research with pretest and posttest design. in thisstudy, 30 soccer players at the college level, with the mean age of 23.20 ± 1.45 years wereselected through purposeful sampling. before performing stretching exercises and measuring,subjects had 5 minutes warm up on a fixed bike with the same speed. then, knee joint positionsense were measured by electrogoniometer sg150 model and the achieved figures were recordedas pretest record in the record sheet. then static stretching exercise protocol was applied on theselected muscle and immediately after that, joint position sense was measured. the obtained datawere recorded as posttest record. the paired t test was used to compare the mean of pretest tothe posttest mean. results: the results of the study showed that there is no significant difference between the meanof knee joint position sense before doing static stretching exercises and thereafter (p = 0.13). conclusion: according to the results of this study, athletes, trainers and coaches can use thestatic stretching without fear of negative effects on the proprioception.