The Relationship between Landing Error Scoring System Performance and Injury in Female Collegiate Athletes.
Peter Lisman, Joshua N Wilder, Joshua Berenbach and 2 others
PMID 34909248WHAT IT FOUND
Landing Error Scoring System (LESS) scores did not predict lower extremity injuries in female collegiate athletes.
Athletes with higher error scores were not more likely to get injured than those with lower scores. Do not use LESS total scores alone to screen for injury risk.
Key findings
01There was no significant association between a total LESS score greater than 5 and the likelihood of sustaining a lower extremity injury.
02When LESS total score was treated as a continuous variable, it was not significantly associated with lower extremity injury.
03Unexpectedly, the uninjured group was more likely to show lateral trunk flexion errors at initial contact than the injured group.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTs
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What it does not show
The study had a relatively small number of injuries (25), which limits the statistical power to detect associations, especially for specific injury types or body parts. The LESS scoring was modified to exclude two items (knee wobble and overall impression) because the automated system could not score them, which may affect comparability with traditional manual LESS scoring. The study only included female athletes from one university, so results may not generalize to male athletes or other institutions. Potential confounding factors like previous injury history were not assessed. The automated motion capture system had some recording errors, requiring 16.4% of participants to perform extra trials.
Declared interests
The authors declared no conflicts of interest. The study was conducted at Towson University.
The easy way to misread this
Do not interpret the lack of association between LESS scores and injury as proof that landing mechanics do not matter. The study used an automated system with a modified scoring rubric and had a small sample size of injuries. It specifically shows that the LESS total score is not a reliable standalone predictor of injury in this population, not that movement quality is irrelevant.