Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL) injuries are one of the most burdensome injuries in sports, particularly in adolescent and youths. Of concern, female athletes have a greater risk of ACL rupture, with research indicating 2–6 times more likely to be injured than males in similar sports. Typically, surgical reconstruction is required with athletes taking on average 9-18months to return to sport after surgery. However, only 65% of all athletes in pivoting sports return to their preinjury level of sport after surgery with 16% return to a lower level of sport, and 19% completely cease participating in sports. Research indicates of those that do return to sport, up to 1 in 4 athletes will re-rupture their graft, or contralateral ACL within 5 years. Adolescents and youths have a 30 to 40 times greater risk of future ACL injury compared to uninjured peers.

There is a need to develop a greater understanding why those who have an ACL injury are at greater risk of subsequent injury. Change of direction, such as cutting and stepping tasks have been highlighted in the mechanism of ACL injury. Whilst change of direction tasks form part of the rehabilitation pathway after ACL reconstruction (i.e. modifying cutting angle, speed, planned vs unplanned), there has been a focus on quantifying physical characteristics like strength, vertical jump, ground contact times, hop distances and linear running metrics to determine physical readiness to return to sport.

Research to date on cutting tasks have predominantly been within controlled laboratory enviroments, lacking ecological validity and are currently not practically viable for clinicians to contextual conditions and constraints. By utilising accessible and practical technology, particularly around field-based change of direction tasks, clinicians may be able to profile and developed strategies to optimise a person’s engagement in sport, maintainence of performance and reduce risk of reinjury