Explosive Strength Imbalances in Professional Basketball Players (Original Research) (Clinical Report‪)‬

Basketball is becoming increasingly popular in many countries and is played worldwide by more than 450 million people. (1) At the professional level, numerous tests and training programs are being used to monitor the cardiovascular (2) and athletic (3) performances of players. The results of these evaluations are used to adjust training techniques in an attempt to prevent traumatic and overuse injuries. Zakas et al (4) showed that compared with players in lower divisions, professional basketball players did not produce higher quadriceps or hamstrings peak torque values relative to body weight. Theoharopoulous and Tsitskaris (5) and Rahnama et al (6) suggested that the training necessary to reach the professional level creates a dominant lower limb in basketball and soccer players. Nevertheless, the literature includes contradictions, and many other authors (7-11) found no differences in peak torque outputs, regardless of dominance or sport activity level.