Background Recent you'll find more and more sport equipment in the sporting goods industry promising at least to increase the subjective stability of joints, being also called intelligent sportswear. Literature also reports about the influence on the sensorimotor system, not only the mechanical effect.

Objective Two different stability devices (knee support, CEP socks) are tested during postural tasks.

Design Clinical controlled study.

Setting The participant is standing one-legged, hands on hips on the Posturomed® platform running with microswing software (Haider Bioswing GmbH, Germany) in order to stabilize the platform as quickly as possible after slackening a lever over a testing period of 10 seconds.

Patients (or Participants) 24 men and women without an injury of the lower extremities during the last 6 months, no artificial limbs, no stiff joints.

Interventions (or Assessment of Risk Factors) Three valid measurements are collected (mean was taken for statistical evaluation) on each side for three different test situations (bare, with knee support, with CEP socks) standing on an instable plane (Posturomed®). The order of the test situation is randomized.

Main Outcome Measurements Collected points during the 10 second testing period provide information about the ability to stabilize the platform. The more points achieved (0–1000), the better the result.

Results Repeated measures and Fisher LSD Test were used for statistical analysis. By using external support postural stability increases significantly, but no significant difference can be found between the two tested devices.

Conclusions In accordance with the literature, sensorimotor function can be supported by external devices used in the study. Injury prevention because of an increased postural control, especially during exhausting physical activities, needs some further research.