Balance control during stance - A comparison between horseback riding athletes and non-athletes

RESEARCH ARTICLE Balance control during stance - A comparison between horseback riding athletes and nonathletes Agnès Olivier ID1,2,3*, Jean-Philippe Viseu1,2, Nicolas Vignais1,2, Nicolas Vuillerme4,5 1 CIAMS, Université Paris-Sud, Université Paris-Saclay, Orsay, France, 2 CIAMS, Université d’Orléans, Orléans, France, 3 Groupe Voltaire—Forestier Sellier, Bidart, France, 4 AGEIS, Université Grenoble Alpes, Grenoble, France, 5 Institut Universitaire de France, Paris, France a1111111111 a1111111111 a1111111111 a1111111111 a1111111111 OPEN ACCESS Citation: Olivier A, Viseu J-P, Vignais N, Vuillerme N (2019) Balance control during stance - A comparison between horseback riding athletes and non-athletes. PLoS ONE 14(2): e0211834. https:// doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0211834 Editor: Thomas A. Stoffregen, University of Minnesota, UNITED STATES Received: November 13, 2018 Accepted: January 21, 2019 Published: February 5, 2019 Copyright: © 2019 Olivier et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Data Availability Statement: All relevant data are within the manuscript and its Supporting Information files. Funding: The sources of funding for this research were: ‘Institut Français du Cheval et de l’Equitation’ (IFCE), Institut national du sport, de l’expertise et de la performance’ (INSEP) and ‘Fonds Eperon’. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Competing interests: The ‘Groupe Voltaire Forestier sellier’ employed AO in October, 2017. * , Abstract Horseback riding requires the ability to adapt to changes in balance conditions, to maintain equilibrium on the horse and to prevent falls. Postural adaptation involves specific sensorimotor processes integrating visual information and somesthesic information. The objective of this study was to examine this multisensorial integration on postural control, especially the use of visual and plantar information in static (stable) and dynamic (unstable) postures, among a group of expert horse rider women (n = 10) and a group of non-athlete women (n = 12). Postural control was evaluated through the center of pressure measured with a force platform on stable and unstable supports, with the eyes open and the eyes closed, and with the presence of foam on the support or not. Results showed that expert horse rider women had a better postural stability with unstable support in the mediolateral axis compared to non-athletes. Moreover, on the anteroposterior axis, expert horse riders were less visual dependent and more stable in the presence of foam. Results suggested that horseback riding could help developing particular proprioceptive abilities on standing posture as well as better postural muscle tone during particular bipodal dynamic perturbations. These outcomes provide new insights into horseback riding assets and methodological clues to assess the impact of sport practice. Introduction Sport practice constraints players to manage simultaneous sources of information in order to maintain postural stability in an efficient manner. This process may be called “adaptive postural control” [1,2]. The contribution of sensory information to postural control has been showed to differ according to the sport activity [3–5] and the level of practice [6,7]. In a recent review, Paillard [8] concluded that repeated particular postures and movements, induced by sport practice, could generate robust postural adaptations. This would be especially the case when the sport practice induces a high level of postural balance during aerial and ground-contact phases, as in gymnastics. Vuillerme and colleagues [9] compared postural control of a group of expert gymnasts vs. a group of experts in other non-gymnastic sports in three standing postures of increasing difficulty: bipedal, unipedal, and unipedal with unstable support (i.e. PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0211834 February 5, 2019 1 / 13 Horseback rider postural control in standing posture However this company did not play any role in this study as it was conducted during AO’s postdoctorate at CIAMS laboratory from Université Paris-Sud (October, 2012, to October, 2017). This affiliation does not alter the authors’ adherence to PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials. 7 cm thick foam surface). Results showed that gymnasts had significantly less postural sway when vision was removed in unipodal tasks. Surf practice is also requiring a high level of postural abilities while standing on the surfboard. In an expert vs non-expert study, Paillard and colleagues [10] analyzed postural control in different visual conditions (open and closed eyes) and stability (static and dynamic) conditions. Postural parameters were therefore assessed by measuring the center of foot pressure displacement. The authors showed that expert surfers had better postural control and they used less visual information when maintaining posture in unstable support. Like horseback riding, canoeing requires postural stability in a sitting posture. Stambolieva and colleagues [5] studied the postural stability of 23 canoeing and kayaking athletes vs. 15 healthy untrained subjects. The influence of two conditions of vision (open and closed eyes) and two conditions of stability (stable and foam support) on center of pressure excursions was analyzed while standing. Results demonstrated that kayaking and canoeing athletes had a better postural stability on an unstable support while standing with eyes open. Moreover, it appeared that the result of Romberg Quotients (RQ) which evaluated the contribution of vision on standing posture, showed that canoeists were more “visual-dependent” than kayakists. This may be related to the fact that canoeists are dealing with a kneeling posture during their activity. Visual dependency reflects the weight each individual assigns to visual or nonvisual information during postural control [11]. In cycling, the athlete is also sitting and needs postural stability to avoid falls. Lion and colleagues [12] compared postural abilities of mountain bikers and road cyclists. They showed significant differences between groups with road cyclists being more sensitive to vision to control balance during stance than mountain bikers. Maintaining postural stability in horseback riding is a critical constraint to ensure safety and avoid falls. Postural stability depends on the sitting posture adopted by the rider, with a leg on each side of horse, commonly referred as a ‘straddle posture’. When horseback riding, the most obvious source of information comes from the visual field. In a recent study, Olivier and colleagues [13] evaluated the relative contribution of visual information to horseback riders’ postural stabil (...truncated)