Background Anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury occurs in left leg more frequently than right leg. Authors have developed new screening test using a situationally bicycle to detecting malalignment represented by a toe-out which may cause ACL injuries during sports.

Objective To measure foot abduction (toe-out) angle during pedalling movement in collegiate athletes and to examine whether pedalling movement can detect by comparing with those during running.

Design Repeated measures design.

Setting Laboratory setting.

Patients (or Participants) A total of 120 collegiate basketball athletes with no orthopaedic diagnosis in lower extremities participated in this study. This study was approved by the institutional review board of Graduate School of Biomedical and Health Sciences, Hiroshima University (ID:1335).

Interventions (or Assessment of Risk Factors) Pedalling movement and running.

Main Outcome Measurements Foot abduction (toe-out) angle during pedalling was calculated based on video images. To compare foot abduction angle between during pedaling and straight running and circle running (clockwise and counterclockwise) was also measured.

Results Higher foot abduction angle was observed in right feet (5.7°±3.5°) compared with those in left feet (4.5°±2.9°) during pedalling (p<0.05). The same difference was observed in straight running (p<0.05). Especially, during circle running, foot adduction angle of outside feet was larger compared with inside feet (p<0.05). In addition, the angle of right feel during counterclockwise circle running was larger compared with that of left feet during clockwise running (p<0.05).

Conclusions The result of this study showed that foot abduction angle during pedalling movement was similar to that during running. Foot abduction angle of right was larger compared with that of left. This tendency was remarkable during circle ruining. Although, this result is contradict to the fact that ACL injury during sports occurs more frequently in left legs compared with right legs, it deserves further discussion.