The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of different foot types
(normal, flat and high arch) with regards to speed, roll-over and impact forces,
thus attempting to indicate if a specific foot type is dominant amongst
sprinters. The different foot types of ten junior sprint athletes and ten nonsprinters
were determined by walking over a pressure platform (RSscan
Internationalâs Footscan® 7.x plate system). The effects of foot roll-over and
peak pressures during sprinting were determined for left and right feet
respectively. The subjects ran barefoot at their top speed (sprinted) over 20
meters, crossing a pressure platform (RSscan Internationalâs Footscan® 7.x
plate system) comprising the last two meters of the 20 meter distance. The
initial contact, final contact, time to peak pressure and the duration of contact
of the different sub-areas of the foot were measured. The results of the
sprintersâ trials were averaged and compared to the non-sprintersâ averaged
trials by performing a statistical T-test. The control group (non-sprinters)
dominantly has a high arch foot type for both feet. In the sprinter group, the
different foot types are all represented almost equally with regards to right
feet, whereas the left feet are dominantly normal type, followed by high arch
and then flat foot types. There was a significant difference (p < 0.05) during
the Foot flat phase (FFP) between the sprinter group (mean left: 4.04ms,
mean right: 4.34ms) and control group (mean left: 26.40ms, mean right:
24.46ms), left: p=0.007; right: p=0.022. This indicates that the FFP time is
significantly faster for the sprinter group than for the control group. The control
group spent a higher percentage of time on the rear foot than the sprinters did
(left: p=0.0057, right: p=0.0268). The control groupâs peak plantar pressures
were predominantly on the sub-areas of the heel (mean:HL=Left: 327.69,
right: 351.44; mean HM= Left: 434.08, right: 423.19) and M1, M2, M3,
whereas the sprintersâ peak plantar pressures are predominantly on the subareas
of the M1, M2, M3, mid-foot and T1, meaning that sprinters
predominantly have peak pressures on forefoot contact whereas the nonsprinters
predominantly have peak pressures on heel contact. The results of
this study therefore indicate that in general, sprinters dominantly have a normal foot type whereas the non-sprinters have a high arch foot type, and
sprinters predominantly have peak pressures on forefoot contact whereas the
non-sprinters predominantly have peak pressures on heel contact during
sprints.
Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:ufs/oai:etd.uovs.ac.za:etd-10042011-122240 |
Date | 04 October 2011 |
Creators | Hugo, Elmie |
Contributors | Dr MC Opperman, Dr FF Coetzee |
Publisher | University of the Free State |
Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
Language | en-uk |
Detected Language | English |
Type | text |
Format | application/pdf |
Source | http://etd.uovs.ac.za//theses/available/etd-10042011-122240/restricted/ |
Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University Free State or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
Page generated in 0.0023 seconds