Elastic-band post-activation performance enhancement alters lower-limb coordination during stable and unstable single-leg landings

Warm-up may change how soccer players organise lower-limb motion during landing, but the separate contributions of elastic-band post-activation performance enhancement (PAPE) and surface instability remain unclear. Twenty male collegiate soccer players completed four conditions in counterbalanced order on four non-consecutive days: general warm-up or elastic-band PAPE, each followed by single-leg landings from a 30-cm platform onto a stable or an unstable surface. Hip-knee and knee-ankle coordination and coordination variability were quantified from continuous relative phase and averaged over five accepted trials per condition. Within-participant contrasts tested warm-up, surface and interaction effects. Elastic-band PAPE increased hip-knee coordination (mean difference 3.50°, 95% CI 1.01 to 5.98, Cohen’s dz = 0.66, false-discovery-rate-adjusted p = 0.025) and knee-ankle coordination (5.42°, 95% CI 3.08 to 7.76, dz = 1.08, adjusted p = 0.001); both effects were confirmed by Wilcoxon signed-rank tests. Neither surface nor the warm-up-by-surface interaction reached significance for any outcome, and coordination variability was unchanged. Individual surface responses were, however, large and bidirectional, so the null surface result reflects cancellation of opposing individual responses rather than absence of response. Elastic-band PAPE acutely alters landing coordination; this is not evidence of reduced injury risk.