It is an injury that has cursed a number of Bath Rugby’s leading players. And now scientists at the University of Bath are carrying out tests that could potentially reduce the number of serious knee injuries they sustain.

Anterior cruciate ligament injuries have dogged fly-halves Butch James and Ryan Davis, among others. Now the scientists want to cut the number of ACL injuries by changing the way players side-step.

This week a series of volunteers are being put through their paces in laboratories at the University’s Claverton Campus to study the side-step technique and the forces it exerts on players’ joints and ligaments.

The idea is to introduce the volunteers to a new way of side-stepping, similar to that used by tennis players when moving, using motion capture technology to study the impact on the joints to see if the forces reduce the risk of injury.

The volunteers will wear LED markers to track their body motion while they run across a laboratory and react to a light signal to change direction to avoid the “defender”.

The computer will then create a model of the volunteer and combine this with the forces measured at the ground to calculate the forces having to be absorbed at the ankle, knee and hip joints.

Dr Grant Trewartha, lecturer in biomechanics in the School for Health, is running the project in conjunction with colleagues Dr Cassie Wilson and Dr Polly McGuigan, at Bath as well as Dr Bridget Munro, senior lecturer in biomechanics in the School of Health Sciences at the University of Wollongong in Australia.

Dr Trewartha said: “It is a serious injury which can still end careers despite surgery.

“If we can modify side-step technique to help reduce these injuries then it would be beneficial to the individuals, the teams they play for and, of course, the NHS.

“This project will look at whether we have to think about changing the way that players play. Then we have to look at groups of players playing in the traditional way against a group playing the new way. If this proves to reduce injury then maybe there’s an argument for changing the way the game is played.”