Background
Advanced footwear technology improves average running economy compared with racing flats in sub-elite athletes. However, not all athletes benefit as performance changes vary from a 10% drawback to a 14% improvement. The main beneficiaries from such technologies, world-class athletes, have only been analyzed using race times.
Objective
The aim of this study was to measure running economy on a laboratory treadmill in advanced footwear technology compared to a traditional racing flat in world-class Kenyan (mean half-marathon time: 59:30 min:s) versus European amateur runners.
Methods
Seven world-class Kenyan and seven amateur European male runners completed a maximal oxygen uptake assessment and submaximal steady-state running economy trials in three different models of advanced footwear technology and a racing flat. To confirm our results and better understand the overall effect of new technology in running shoes, we conducted a systematic search and meta-analysis.
Results
Laboratory results revealed large variability in both world-class Kenyan road runners, which ranged from a 11.3% drawback to a 11.4% benefit, and amateur Europeans, which ranged from a 9.7% benefit to a 1.1% drawback in running economy of advanced footwear technology compared to a flat. The post-hoc meta-analysis revealed an overall significant medium benefit of advanced footwear technology on running economy compared with traditional flats.
Conclusions
Variability of advanced footwear technology performance appears in both world-class and amateur runners, suggesting further testing should examine such variability to ensure validity of results and explain the cause as a more personalized approach to shoe selection might be necessary for optimal benefit.
In this study, we addressed potential biases which can occur when sensorial scores of temperature, wetness and discomfort are repeatedly reported, in transient exercise conditions. We pointed out that, when repeatedly reported, previous sensorial scores can be set by the participants as reference values and the subsequent score may be given based on the previous point of reference, the latter phenomenon leading to a bias which we defined as ‘anchoring bias’. Indeed, the findings shown that subsequent sensorial scores are prone to anchoring biases and that the bias consisted in a systematically higher magnitude of sensation as compared to when reported a single time only. As such, the study allowed recognition, quantification and mitigation of the identified bias which can improve the methodological rigour of research studies involving assessments of sensorial data in transient conditions.
The present study investigated the effect of environmental temperature on the hand-feel perception of textiles. Participants were exposed to three different climate conditions (10 °C/20 °C/30 °C, RH 65 %) to simulate cool, mild, and warm environments. Hand-feel attributes, comfort, and preferences of a wide range of textiles were rated by the participants. Participants’ body responses to the different temperatures were controlled by monitoring participants’ aural temperature, mean skin temperature, hand temperature, tactile sensitivity, and environmental perception. Fabric weight was measured to monitor changes in textile properties induced by the different environmental conditions. The outcomes of the study suggest that the environmental temperature led to significant changes in participants’ aural temperature, mean skin temperature, hand temperature, tactile sensitivity, and environmental perception, affecting the hand-feel perception of the different textiles. Thus, the present study provides insight for practitioners to develop more comfortable textiles for specific environmental temperatures by establishing a basis for understanding how environmental temperature, body responses, and hand feel perception interact.
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