Objectives To compare ankle proprioception between professional adolescent table tennis players at national and regional levels and age-matched non-athletes, and, in a nominally upper-limb sport, to explore the relationships between single- and dual-task ankle proprioception, years of training and sport-specific performance. Design Cross-sectional observational study. Methods Fifty-five participants (29 professional adolescent table tennis players and 26 non-athletic peers) volunteered. Ankle proprioception was first assessed using the active movement extent discrimination apparatus (AMEDA-single) for all; yet only the players were then re-assessed while executing a secondary ball-hitting task (AMEDA-dual). The mean Area Under the Receiver Operating Characteristic Curve was calculated as the proprioceptive score, and years of training and hitting rate were recorded. Results National-level players had significantly better ankle proprioception as shown by higher AMEDA-single scores than the other groups (all p<0.05). Ankle proprioceptive performance was significantly impaired while ball-hitting (F1,28=58.89, p=0.001, np2=0.69). National-level players outperformed the regional-level significantly on the AMEDA-dual task (F1,27=21.4, p=0.001, np2=0.44). Further, ankle proprioceptive performance was related to expertise, in that both AMEDA-single and AMEDA-dual proprioceptive scores were correlated with years of training and ball-hitting rate (r from 0.40 to 0.54, all p<0.05). Conclusions Ankle proprioception is a promising measure that may be used to identify different ability levels among adolescent table tennis players. Superior ankle proprioception may arise from rigorous training and contribute to stroke accuracy. Dual-task proprioceptive assessment suggests how elite table tennis players perform differently from lower-ranked players in complex and changeable sports circumstances.
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