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Here's a study I read this week that you might find interesting.
2020 study by Dr Tim Hewett (aka the research king of ACL rehab) and colleagues:
When doing a return to sport assessment, a normal battery of tests may look like this:
Isokinetic testing
Hop tests
Leg press
Researchers used these 3 tests on 26 patients that were 8 months post-op to check their limb symmetry index (LSI) in order to make sure that the injured leg was at least 90% as strong as the uninjured leg.
But have a look at this graph depicting the average limb symmetry results from the study:
Image inspiration: Ortho Journal of Sports Medicine
If they just did a single or triple hop test, they would have been deceived into thinking that they had achieved more than 90% limb symmetry.
When they added a leg press test, they noticed that the involved leg was weaker than the required 90% symmetry.
Then when they added an Isokinetic test, they found out that the involved leg was nearly 20% weaker than their hop tests revealed.
Main point:
Yes, all the cool kids are doing hop tests for their RTS criteria but don’t let social media fool you - the patient still needs multiple methods of assessing readiness.
References
Webster KE, Feller JA. Who Passes Return-to-Sport Tests, and Which Tests Are Most Strongly Associated With Return to Play After Anterior Cruciate Ligament Reconstruction? Orthop J Sports Med. 2020 Dec 18;8(12):2325967120969425. doi: 10.1177/2325967120969425. PMID: 33415177; PMCID: PMC7750778.
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Written by Kyle van Heerden
Online Educator at Research Raconteur
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