Purpose: Identifying lower extremity defects during high impact activity, such as landing, especially in young athletes who play team sports, could help to prevent non-contact lower extremity injuries. The Tuck Jump Assessment (TJA) is a screening insrument designed to recognize neuromuscular defcits related to Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL) injury. The current sudy invesigated the prevalence rate of neuromuscular defcits during tuck jump in female and male physical education and sports sciences collegiate sudents. Methods: The sudy subjects included all undergraduate sudents of physical education and sports science at the University of Kurdisan in 2018-2019 academic year (male/female =55-77, Mean±SD age: 21.3±1.7 y, weight: 63.4±12.3 kg, height: 169.4±9.5 cm, body mass index: 21.97±2.94 kg/ m2, and sports experience: 4.95±3.38 y). All sudy subjects conducted the TJA, which consised of continuous maximal height tuck jumps for 10 seconds. Tuck jump performance was recorded by two cameras in sagittal and frontal planes and was evaluated using the Kinovea software. The performance was scored across 10 criteria using the modifed scale (0-2). Results: One-Way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) results revealed a signifcant difference between the tuck jump scores in male and female athletes (P<0.01). The difference between male and female athletes was not signifcant in neuromuscular fatigue and quadriceps dominance; in both groups, the prevalence of these defects was <15%. However, there was a signifcant difference between the ligament dominance, trunk dominance, and leg dominance of male and female athletes (P<0.01). The prevalence of leg dominance in males (65.5%: 49.1% grade 1, 16.4% grade 2) was higher than that of the females (45.5%: 40.30% grade 1, 5.2% grade 2). But the prevalence of ligament dominance in females (81.8%: 51.9% grade 1, 29.9% grade 2) was higher than that of the males (40%: 34.5% grade 1, 5.5% grade 2). Besides, the prevalence of trunk dominance in females (72.7%: 57.1% grade 1, 15.6% grade 2) was higher than that of the males (26.3%: 25.5% grade 1, 1.8% grade 2). Conclusion: The mean score of incidence of the ligament dominance, trunk dominance, and leg dominance was ˃50% in the sudy subjects. Thus, it is recommended that preventive exercise programs emphasize on the correction of these defects. The correction of leg dominance defciency is a priority among males; however, the correction of ligament dominance and trunk dominance is the priority among females.
