External rotation elastic bands at the lower limb decrease rearfoot eversion during walking: a preliminary proof of concept

BACKGROUND: Reducing rearfoot eversion is a commonly desired effect in clinical practice to prevent or treat musculoskeletal dysfunction. Interventions that pull the lower limb into external rotation may reduce rearfoot eversion. OBJECTIVE: This study investigated whether the use of external rotation elastic bands, of different levels of stiffness, will decrease rearfoot eversion during walking. We hypothesized that the use of elastic bands would decrease rearfoot eversion and that the greater the band stiffness, the greater the eversion reduction. METHOD: Seventeen healthy participants underwent three-dimensional kinematic analysis of the rearfoot and shank. The participants walked on a treadmill with and without high- and low-stiffness bands. Frontal-plane kinematics of the rearfoot-shank joint complex was obtained during the stance phase of walking. Repeated-measures ANOVAs were used to compare discrete variables that described rearfoot eversion-inversion: mean eversion-inversion; eversion peak; and eversion-inversion range of motion. RESULTS: The low-stiffness and high-stiffness bands significantly decreased eversion and increased mean eversion-inversion (p≤0.037) and eversion peak (p≤0.006) compared with the control condition. Both bands also decreased eversion-inversion range of motion (p≤0.047) compared with control by reducing eversion. The high-stiffness band condition was not significantly different from the low-stiffness band condition for any variables (p≥0.479). CONCLUSION: The results indicated that the external rotation bands decreased rearfoot eversion during walking. This constitutes preliminary experimental evidence suggesting that increasing external rotation moments at the lower limb may reduce rearfoot eversion, which needs further testing.