Evaluation of sprinting performance in adolescent athletes with running shoes, spikes and barefoot

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IntroductionHumans have been engaged in running activities for millions of years. In classical Greece, during the Olympic Games the athletes competed barefoot but from the late 20th century to present time a great number of scientists have based their research on the innovative technology of the sport shoes (Nigg, 1986; Bramble, & Lieberman, 2004). Barefoot running may induce an adaptation that transfers the impact to the yielding musculature, thus sparing the fascia and accounting for the low incidence of plantar fasciitis in barefoot runners (Henning, Valiant, & Liu, 1996). When running barefoot on hard surfaces, the athlete compensates for the lack of cushioning underfoot by plantar-flexing the foot at contact, thus giving a softer landing (Frederick, 1986; Yessis, 2000). In addition, the contemporary shoes generally reduce sensory feedback without diminishing injury-inducing impact-a process-described as the perceptual illusion of training shoe (Robbins & Gouw, 1991).A great part of research in running mechanics refers to the adolescents whose future performance as top-level athletes can be defined by the innovative technology in the training or racing shoes (Rao, & Joseph, 1992; Rossi, 2002). The contemporary running shoes appear to attenuate loading since long-axis tibial acceleration is reduced during shod running in children (Thomson, et ak, 1999; Waneger et ak, 2011). In addition, during the training or competition of the developmental age athletes, the shod running presented an increase in the prevalence of the rearfoot strike pattern from 62% barefoot to 97% with running shoes (Clarke, Frederick, & Cooper, 1983). Furthermore, it was recently proved that the minimalist and more flexible shoes do not change the foot motion as much as the conventional shoes and therefore they should generally be recoimnended for young runners (Wolf et ak, 2008).Moreover, the barefoot running is not only rare in competition but also there are no published controlled trials concerning the effects of running barefoot on simulated or real competitive performance. In addition, there is a lack of data concerning the shod and unshod running performance in developmental age athletes and the relative studies were mainly implemented in laboratory conditions. Because of the fact that the training with running shoes and spikes is widely used in young runners by their trainers we hypothesized that barefoot running could alter the finish times in a short maximal sprint. Thus, the purpose of this study was to compare the adolescent boys' and girls' sprinting performance in the 30m by wearing running shoes, racing shoes (spikes) and barefoot.MethodParticipantsA total of thirty three (n=33) athletes aged 11.9±1.1 years volunteered to participate in this study. The athletes consisted of nineteen (n=19) boys (11.6±0.8 years) and fourteen (n=14) girls (12.3±0.4 years) with a training experience of 2.3±1 years in Athletics, completing at least 4 sessions per-week. Only the athletes who were injury free for at least 5-weeks and have participated in sprint races were included. The nature of the experimental protocol was fully explained to each participant but they were not informed about the specific purpose of the study. Furthermore, none of the adolescent athletes had ever been trained barefoot since the beginning of this study. The participants' parents were informed about the research and they signed a written consent prior to their children's participation. The study was approved by the Ethics Committee of the Democritus University of Thrace.Testing ProceduresThe initial screening of this study included the evaluation of the anthropometrical characteristics (age, body mass, stature, foot length) of the participants as well as the measurement of their running shoes and spikes mass. The testing trials run in the afternoon in identical conditions with the ambient temperatures ranging from 22°C to 25°C and they were carried out with a standard 48-hour rest. …