Effects of Plyometric and Balance Training on Neuromuscular Control of Recreational Athletes with Functional Ankle Instability: A Randomized Controlled Laboratory Study.

Ankle sprains and the lingering instability that follows them are common in sport, and researchers have been more focused on knee injury prevention exercises like plyometrics than on how these programs affect the ankle itself. This study compared two six-week training programs, plyometric exercise alone and plyometric training combined with balance work, against a control group in recreational athletes with functional ankle instability, measuring joint position sense, muscle activity, and how quickly muscles adjusted after a single-leg drop landing. Both training groups showed improvements within their own group in sensing ankle position after training, particularly for plantar flexion movement, and the combined group also improved at sensing inward ankle rolling. The plyometric-only group showed changes in muscle timing and activation patterns after landing.

These are within-group changes over a short training period in a small sample, so the findings point toward promising directions for ankle rehabilitation research rather than established treatment effects, and whether these neuromuscular changes translate into fewer injuries remains unknown.

If you've ever rolled your ankle and felt like it's never quite been as stable since, you're dealing with something researchers call functional ankle instability. This small study looked at whether exercise programs focused on jumping and landing (plyometric training), with or without added balance exercises, could help recreational athletes with this problem.

Thirty people took part, split into three groups over six weeks. Both exercise groups got better at sensing their ankle's position after training, especially for one type of ankle movement, and the group doing combined balance and jumping training also improved at sensing inward ankle rolling. The jumping-only group showed faster muscle response after landing on the affected ankle.

These results come from a small group of people studied in a lab setting, measuring ankle sensation and muscle activity rather than tracking actual injury outcomes, so they can't yet tell us whether this training would reduce future ankle sprains or reinjuries in everyday sport.

This is a summary of research, not medical advice. Talk to your own healthcare provider about anything affecting your care.

This trial speaks to a specific clinical question: whether structured plyometric training, with or without integrated balance work, measurably changes ankle proprioception and neuromuscular control in people with functional ankle instability. Thirty recreational athletes were randomised to plyometric training, plyometric plus balance training, or control, with joint position sense, integrated EMG, and balance adjusting time assessed during single-leg drop landing before and after six weeks. Both intervention groups showed within-group reductions in absolute error for plantar flexion joint position sense (plyometric: 3.79° to 2.20°, p=0.016; combined: 4.10° to 2.94°, p=0.045), while only the combined group showed improved inversion sense (2.24° to 1.48°, p=0.022) alongside increased pre-landing plantar flexor EMG.

The plyometric-only group showed increased post-landing tibialis anterior activity and a shortened plantar flexor adjusting time after landing (2.85s to 1.87s, p=0.006). These are within-group changes without reported head-to-head statistical comparison between the two training arms, so the abstract does not establish whether one program outperformed the other.

The findings inform understanding of possible neuromuscular adaptations to these training types but do not establish injury reduction, functional outcome change, or long-term retention, given the small sample, laboratory-based proprioceptive and EMG measures, and short training period.