Effect of soccer shoe ball girth differences on fit perception, agility running and running speed perception

Abstract

Purpose: Soccer shoes influence agility running due to traction properties. Shoe upper fit was identified to effect stability perception of players. However, its influence on agility running performance is unclear. This study examined whether soccer shoe ball girth dimension affects fit perception, agility running, and running speed perception. It was hypothesised that a narrower shoe ball girth would improve running performance.Methods: Thirty male soccer players performed agility runs in three experimental shoe conditions, featuring the same length but different ball girth (narrow, medium, wide). Fit perception, running time, and running speed perception were measured by a timing gate and perception protocols. One-way repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) and Friedman tests were used to identify differences among shoe conditions, complemented by least significant difference (LSD) post-hoc and Wilcoxon signed rank tests.Results: Fit perception scores revealed that the medium and the wide shoe condition were perceived to have wider ball girth compared to the narrow condition (p < 0.05). No agility running performance and running speed perception differences were detected among shoe conditions. Anatomical foot measures were only weakly, or not correlated to fit perception at corresponding shoe locations.Conclusion: Fit differences of soccer shoes, only regarding their ball girth, did not influence agility running performance. This indicates a lesser importance of fit properties for achieving best running performance compared to traction properties, when ball girth is varied in shoes featuring a given shoe length. Individual lacing procedures were used in this study and may have compensated for the fit differences of the experimental shoes of this research.