Effect of 3 Weeks Use of Compression Garments on Stride and Impact Shock during a Fatiguing Run

Abstract

Excessive and prolonged exposure to impact acceleration during running is associated with increased injury rate. Acute use of compressive garments has been speculated to improve attenuation. However, it is unknown how longer interventions of compressive garments influence attenuation in running. 40 runners trained with compressive and placebo stockings for 3 weeks. Perception of comfort, stride parameters (rate, length) and impact acceleration (head and tibial peak acceleration, magnitude, acceleration rate and attenuation) were measured every 5 min during a fatigue run (30 min at 80% of the individual's maximal aerobic speed). Compressive stockings reduced tibial peak acceleration and magnitude compared to placebo stockings at every minute (p<0.05) except for the initial measurement (p>0.05). Moreover, compressive stockings led to a lower rate of increase in tibial peak acceleration (14%, p<0.005) and magnitude (16%, p<0.001) as a result of the development of fatigue compared to placebo stockings (24% and 26% increase, p=0.014 and p=0.003, respectively). Similar perception of comfort was reported for both garments. Training with compressive stockings for 3 weeks reduced impact acceleration and the rate of increase in acceleration compared to placebo stockings. These findings suggest that compressive stockings may play a protective role by reducing impact accelerations during running.

The effect of visual focus on spatio-temporal and kinematic parameters of treadmill running

“…Two lightweight tri-axial accelerometers (AcelSystem, Blautic, Spain; total mass: 2.5 g; dimensions: 40 mm × 22 mm × 12 mm) were fixed to the skin with double-sided adhesive tape and data were sampled at 300 Hz. The accelerometers were secured by elastic belts around the distal antero-medial aspect of the right tibia and upon the forehead [20]. The vertical axis of the accelerometer was aligned to be parallel to the long axis of the shank.…”

“…Acceleration data were filtered using a 50 Hz low pass second order Butterworth filter developed in Matlab (MathWorks Inc., Natick, MA, USA). Head and tibial peak acceleration (maximum value of the acceleration signal), acceleration magnitude (difference between the minimum and maximum acceleration), acceleration rate (acceleration gradient between contact time and peak acceleration), and shock attenuation (reduction in peak impact acceleration from the tibia to the head) were calculated for each step of the right foot [19,20]. Stride length (distance between successive points of heel contact of the same foot) and Stride frequency (number of heel contacts of the same foot per second) were also calculated by the signal of the accelerometers.…”

Impact Acceleration During Prolonged Running While Wearing Conventional Versus Minimalist Shoes

“…No significant differences were observed in the headacceleration magnitude, but attenuation was higher with the use of MS (Figure 3). This may be an important because the aforementioned impact transfer must be attenuated to prevent excessive head deceleration from affecting the vestibular and visual systems; this could be influenced by factors such as plantar fat deformation, sports shoe type, the use of plantar supports or compression stockings (Lucas-Cuevas et al, 2015;O'Leary, Vorpahl, & Heiderscheit, 2008), runner speed (Mercer et al, 2002), running surface (García-Pérez et al, 2014), stride length, and the behavior of the osteo-articular and muscleligamentous structures of the body (Flynn, Holmes, & Andrews, 2004;Gruber et al, 2014;Mercer et al, 2002).…”

“…In the first session we performed a 5-minute test which was used to calculate the maximal aerobic velocity of each runner (Lucas-Cuevas et al, 2015). In the following two sessions the participants ran for 30 minutes at 80% of their individual maximal aerobic velocity (García-Pérez et al, 2014), once wearing MS and the other using CS (in a random order); participants used their own MS and CS The only inclusion-criteria characteristic for the footwear was that the MS had a 0 mm drop and a sole of less than 4 mm and the CS (the last conventional running shoe that the participant had used for training before transitioning to MS) were neutral and had a drop of at least 8 mm.…”

“…These acceleration data were filtered using 8-order low-pass digital Chebyshev type-II filter, applying a stop-band edge frequency of 120 Hz and a stop-band ripple of 40 dB; we considered the vertical signal components only, and the stride duration (signal period) was calculated by locating the moment of maximum autocorrelation. The stride parameters (stride frequency and length) and foot-strike acceleration parameters (head and tibia peak-acceleration [maximum amplitude] and magnitude [the difference between the positive and the negative peakacceleration], acceleration rate [slope from ground contact to peak acceleration], and attenuation [reduction in foot-strike acceleration from the tibia to the head]) were analyzed based on the acceleration signal data (Lucas-Cuevas et al, 2015).…”