Self-reported sports participation is associated with Y-Balance performance and centre-of-pressure measures in young adults

Abstract This exploratory cross-sectional study examined associations between a study-specific self-reported sports-participation category and balance measures in 65 healthy young adults, including 32 participants in the sports-participation group and 33 in the non-sports-participation group. Quiet-standing centre-of-pressure (COP) measures and a floor-marked Y-Balance Test Lower Quarter (YBT-LQ) were assessed, while Romberg-type relative change and inter-limb symmetry indices were treated as secondary descriptive measures. A covariate-adjusted MANCOVA of five representative outcomes showed an overall association with sports participation ( P < 0.001). The sports-participation group had a higher YBT total score than the non-sports-participation group (94.20 ± 9.25 vs 85.96 ± 8.44%LL; P < 0.001; point-biserial r = 0.43). The adjusted YBT difference was 13.59%LL (95% CI 7.90 to 19.28; Holm-adjusted P < 0.001). Adjusted eyes-open bipedal COP velocity was lower in the sports-participation group than in the non-sports-participation group (3.53 vs 3.85 cm·s⁻1; difference − 0.32 cm·s⁻1, 95% CI − 0.55 to − 0.09; Holm-adjusted P = 0.023). An unconditional adjusted estimate for eyes-closed bipedal COP velocity was not interpreted because the homogeneity-of-regression-slopes assumption was violated. No statistically significant differences were detected for the bipedal or unipedal Romberg-type indices ( P = 0.782 and P = 0.172) or for the static or dynamic symmetry indices ( P = 0.984 and P = 0.376); small-to-moderate effects may have been missed. Descriptive PCA had borderline sampling adequacy (KMO = 0.51), and LASSO retained sports participation under the applied penalty but showed poor cross-validated performance (R2 = 0.075). These findings do not establish causation or clinical importance and should not be used for clinical decision-making or injury-risk screening.