Court Shoes Research Articles

Shoe choice may affect fencing lunge attack performance.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the differences in attack time and lower limb biomechanics when performing fencing lunge with fencing shoes (FS) and commonly used court shoes (CS). Additionally, the study aimed to evaluate whether fencing shoes with a heel cup (FSH) could reduce lower limb impact. Thirteen female collegiate fencers who had participated in national-level competitions were recruited for this study. Participants performed the lunge on a human-shaped target while wearing FS, FSH, or CS in a randomized order. Biomechanical data were collected using a 3D motion analysis system synchronized with a force plate. A signal light, and an accelerometer were attached to the target's head to initiate lunge movement and detect hit moment for calculating attack time. Attack time was significantly shorter when wearing FS (0.92 ± 0.05s) and FSH (0.93 ± 0.07s) compared to CS (0.96 ± 0.06s). The maximum angular velocity of ankle plantarflexion in rear foot push-off phase was significantly slower when wearing FS and FSH than when wearing CS. The maximum knee posterior shear force, maximum knee flexion moment, and maximum ankle medial shear force during the front foot step phase were significantly greater when wearing FS than when wearing CS. These forces were significantly reduced or nearly significantly reduced when wearing FSH, and there were no significant differences compared to wearing CS. The maximum ankle medial shear force during the push-off phase in rear foot was the greatest when wearing FS but decreased significantly when using FSH. However, this force was still greater than when wearing CS. Wearing FS resulted in a higher loading rate (LR) on the front foot. This LR was reduced when a heel cup was used but still remained higher than when wearing CS. There were no significant differences in the forward extension of body, maximum ground reaction force, or center of pressure displacement during front foot step and rear foot push-off phases among the three shoe conditions. Wearing FS can enhance lunge performance, and the use of a heel cup can effectively reduce lower limb impact.

Biomechanical study with kinematic and kinetic descriptions of the effect of high-heeled shoes in healthy adult females based on gait analysis

Many women remain unaware of the negative effect of high-heeled shoes and the damage and significant changes they can cause in the human body. Studying the effect of high heels during walking shows biomechanical changes in the person wearing the shoes based on their influence on ankle joints, foot pressure distribution, and muscle activity, and changes in Ground Reaction Forces. This study examined the effects of high heels and smooth-soled court shoes using gait analysis. Experiments were conducted on five healthy volunteers, who were all young women without known diseases or muscle or bone injuries; most were also accustomed to wearing high heels on a daily basis. The volunteers’ average age was 22.4 years, the average height 160 cm, and the average weight 59.8 kg. Three types of high heels were used; each volunteer was thus required to walk barefoot, with 1 cm heels, 5 cm heels, and with 7cm heels.The result showed that the step length and ankle joint angle decreased as the heel height increased, causing the speed of gait to become slower and the cadence to increase, thus increasing vertical ground reaction force and the moment of the knee joint. Women should be advised not to wear shows with heel heights greater than 5 cm to reduce the injury risk and preserve comfort.

Effects of basketball court construction and shoe stiffness on countermovement jump landings

Foot-ground contact upon landing from a jump results in an impulsive impact force. Parameters of impact including vertical ground reaction force (vGRF), loading rate, tibial acceleration, and impact attenuation have been associated with lower limb injury risk. Differences in shoe stiffness and surface construction may influence impact loading and attenuation, but evidence is limited. The purpose of this study was to quantify the influence of basketball court surface construction and shoe midsole stiffness on ground reaction force, joint work, and acceleration measures during countermovement jump landings. Twenty-nine male collegiate and high school basketball players performed maximal countermovement jumps in each of three basketball shoes and on three wood court surfaces with varying compressive stiffness. Peak vGRF, vertical instantaneous loading rate, tibial and head acceleration, impact attenuation, and joint work at the ankle and knee were quantified. No differences in peak vGRF, loading rate, impact attenuation, or knee joint work were observed between surface or shoe conditions (p ≥ 0.056). Eccentric ankle work was lowest on the stiffest surface (p ≤ 0.014). Peak resultant tibial acceleration in the time domain and axial tibial high frequency signal power magnitude in the frequency domain were lowest in the most compliant shoe (p = 0.005 and p = 0.046, respectively). The few significant findings for shoe stiffness and the somewhat counterintuitive finding for surface suggest that shoe and surface stiffness have minimal effects on parameters associated with impact during countermovement jump landings.

Biomechanical Comparison of Court Shoes for Indoor Sports Performance

Biomechanical Comparison of Court Shoes for Indoor Sports Performance

Court Shoe Production Line: Improvement of Process Cycle Efficiency by Using Lean Tools

Court Shoe Production Line: Improvement of Process Cycle Efficiency by Using Lean Tools

Effects of court specific and minimalist footwear on the biomechanics of a maximal 180° cutting manoeuvre

PurposeThe aim of the current investigation was to examine the effects of different footwear on the kinetics and kinematics of performing a 180° cutting manoeuvre.MethodsNine male participants performed maximal 180° cut movements in court shoes, minimalist footwear, energy return, and conventional running shoes. Lower limb kinematic data were collected with the use of an 8 camera motion capture system, ground reaction forces were quantified with an embedded force platform, and tibial accelerations were obtained by means of an accelerometer. Differences in kinetics and kinematics between footwear were examined by one-way repeated measures ANOVA.ResultsThe results showed that both instantaneous loading rate and peak tibial acceleration were significantly larger in the minimalist (282.91 BW/s and 6.38 g) and court (326.67 BW/s and 6.35 g) footwear compared with the conventional (143.19 BW/s and 5.46 g) and energy return (106.14 BW/s and 4.98 g) footwear. In addition, peak inversion was revealed to be significantly larger in the minimalist (16.36°) than in conventional (11.86°), court (12.61°), and energy return (10.12°) footwear.ConclusionsThese findings indicate that minimalist and court footwear may place athletes at increased risk from injury when performing 180° cut movements.

Footwear Industry in Bangladesh: Implementation of Six Sigma Methodology

The increasing economic growth in Bangladesh encourages the growth of Leather sector. This condition results in an intense competition among the leather products industries particularly footwear industries which encourages companies to produce quality products in order to meet customers’ satisfaction. One of the methods to control the quality is by using Six Sigma (SS). SS is a method of improving the quality towards the target of 3.4 defects per million opportunities for each production of goods and services. SS is divided into two methods, namely DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyse, Improve, and Control) and DMADV (Define, Measure, Analyse, Design, and Verify). It can be implemented not only for big companies but also for SMEs. This study was conducted to determine the application of quality control aspect of SS in leading export oriented footwear industry in Bangladesh using DMAIC method. By using this tool, it can be seen that the sigma value in the different production line like court shoe and oxford shoe production line are 6324 and 6300 with the possibility of error products contained are 32938 and 32814 per million opportunities respectively. In the application of SS in this study, there are various causes of defective products, namely toe lasting problems, inefficient ironing, insufficient chilling, etc.

The Winter’s Tale

Reviewed by: The Winter’s Tale Pascale Aebischer The Winter’s TalePresented by Cheek by Jowl at the Silk Street Theatre, Barbican, London, UK. 04 5– 22, 2017. Directed by Declan Donnellan. Designed by Nick Ormerod. Lighting design by Judith Greenwood. Music and sound design by Paddy Cunneen. With Grace Andrews (Emilia/Time), Joseph Black (Cleomenes), David Carr (Camillo), Tom Cawte (Mamillius), Ryan Donaldson (Autolycus), Guy Hughes (Dion), Orlando James (Leontes), Sam McArdle (Young Shepherd), Eleanor McLoughlin (Perdita), Peter Moreton (Old Shepherd/Antigonus), Natalie Radmall-Quirke (Hermione/Dorcas), Joy Richardson (Paulina/Mopsa), Edward Sayer (Polixenes), and Sam Woolf (Florizel). The following review continues our recurring series of “Second Looks,” in which reviewers who enjoy an especially intimate relationship to a play or company—for example, those who have edited its text, directed a production of it, or have published elsewhere on the company and its productions—revisit productions we have previously reviewed from their own area of expertise or academic interest. Here, Pascale Aebischer, who has written on Cheek by Jowl’s media work, reviews the company’sThe Winter’s Tale, previously reviewedin Shakespeare Bulletin by Justin B. Hopkins. A woman in a red coat sits on a long green bench with her back to the audience. The lights go down. The lights go up. A man sits on a bench facing the audience. As the light intensifies and music builds up into a thunderclap, his handsome face acquires ever deeper shadows until the outlines of the skull beneath his skin make his eyes disappear into their sockets. The opening dumb show of Cheek by Jowl’s The Winter’s Talestaged the ravages of Time—personified as the woman in the red coat—as played out over the features of Orlando James’s Leontes. It presented the play as the tragedy of a mismatch between Leontes’s attractive features and his inner corruption. In its substitution of Leontes’s body for that of female Time, it furthermore brought to the fore how Shakespeare’s play itself maximizes the attention to Leontes’s [End Page 721]anguish, remorse, and eventual redemption by removing alternative focal points from view, killing off Mamillius and making Hermione “die” offstage. In his review of this touring production on its stopover in New York in Shakespeare Bulletin35.2, Justin B. Hopkins takes his lead from the dumb show and focuses attention on the production’s immature, impulsive, psychologically imbalanced and dangerously abusive Leontes. As James performed him, Leontes was a man of muscular action and violent emotion: he wrestled with Polixenes, manipulated his friend’s and Hermione’s bodies into smiling and copulating, slapped his son, sobbed, grovelled, and knelt in a final tentative embrace of his wife and daughter. Hermione, in Hopkins’s account of the production, was passive: silent in the face of Leontes’s accusation, the victim of his vicious physical assault that led to Perdita’s premature birth, and an almost incidental contributor to the pathos of Leontes’s emotions in the final scene. But there is another way of reading the production that complements Hopkins’s account. Donnellan and Ormerod are known for putting troubled familial dynamics and complex female characters center stage and for creating physical tableaux in which emotional relationships are visualized through gesture and spatial configurations, as they did in their productions of Measure for Measure, ’Tis Pity She’s a Whore, and The Changeling(for accounts of these productions, see Aebischer; Mentz; Menzer). Taking a lead from this, I want to focus on Natalie Radmall-Quirke’s Hermione and consider the story this production tells through her stillness and her body’s placement in relation to the bodies of others. When Hermione first appeared, heavily pregnant yet in court shoes sitting on the bench next to Leontes, the upright elegance and reserve of her bearing indicated a life led permanently in the limelight. The discernible strain in her manner as she asked Polixenes to stay, and her quick glances to Leontes to check how he would respond, suggested an anxiety over pleasing her husband that might indicate a longer history of abuse. When Leontes embarrassed his reluctant guest by pulling him into...

Interior at Nice

Interior at Nice Andrew Motion (bio) Henri Matisse, 1919 or 1920 When I came up from the world below, from the heat and glare, from white dust thickening the air with its pelt of atoms, I found the shutters to your room closed and for a dreaming moment paused there. It was the submarine green of the wood and parching crackle of the glaze. It was spider-web cauls embalming the hinges, and the shrivelled corpses of their victims shaking slightly in such breeze as blew. It was zebra light-bars crashing silently onto the purple carpet with its diamonds. But then that passed. I pulled or someone pulled the shutters open. There you were. Just as I had always hoped, it turned out you had been waiting for me all your life. In the end it proved to be perfectly simple. You had put on your plainest ivory frock, American stockings you knew I would like, shiny court shoes, and taken a black chair, the one with dainty legs splayed outwards so it seemed about to collapse at any moment even beneath a weightless weight like yours, crossed your own legs and folded your arms, then let the tide come in and out behind you and the soporific waves repeat themselves [End Page 332] until such time as I appeared to you, or you to me, since I have also been here all my life. Now we have the rest of our lives to complete let me at least begin with everything in place: the vase of blue and crimson flowers you set off-centre on the dowdy tablecloth (their name will come to me . . . their name will come to me); the wallpaper where golden boughs or golden branches shoot and spread as lavishly as green; the larger, squat and wide-armed yellow chair I seem in my inspection to have climbed above, weightless as I said you were but whereas you stay fixed on your veranda as I found you, I am halfway to the ceiling and might soon be gone for good, except for your fixed gaze and mine which endlessly returns attention back to you. [End Page 333] Andrew Motion ANDREW MOTION served as Poet Laureate of the UK from 1999 to 2009. He now lives in Baltimore. His most recent collection, Coming in to Land, was published by Ecco Press in January 2017. Copyright © 2017 Andrew Motion

Shoe influence on actual and perceived ball handling performance in soccer

Purpose: Ball handling, the interaction between foot and ball, is the defining component of soccer. Soccer footwear was shown to influence ball velocity and ball accuracy during standardized kicking techniques. However, ball handling comprises all sorts of foot and ball interaction. Therefore, this research quantified general ball handling performance of soccer players wearing different footwear. Methods: Nineteen experienced soccer players performed a subjective and objective ball handling test. It included dribbling, juggling, lofted passing of stationary ball, one touch passing of rolling ball and one touch passing from aerial. Different footwear conditions included two soccer shoe models, a non soccer specific indoor court shoe and barefoot. Shoe performance was analyzed using repeated measures ANOVA and Bonferroni post-hoc tests (P < 0.05). Results: Objective performance measurements revealed only few statistically significant differences between footwear. In contrast, subjective perception measurements showed statistical differences between footwear. Subjects generally perceived soccer specific footwear as suited protective devices during ball handling and to be better suited for ball handling performance than non soccer specific footwear. Additionally, subjects tended to judge ball handling between the two soccer shoes to be different. However, subjective ball handling perception did not generally reflect objective performance of players. Conclusion: Footwear changes perception of ball handling performance. It may also alter actually measurable performance. Specific mechanisms allowing players to exhibit increased ball handling performance by use of footwear have not been identified yet. Thus, soccer research should also aim to establish suited biomechanical and mechanical protocols for the analysis of interface characteristics of foot and ball.

Ambient Thinking: Or, Sweating over Theory

Ambient Thinking: Or, Sweating over Theory

The Role of Footwear on Kinematics and Plantar Foot Pressure in Fencing

The sport of fencing involves asymmetric motions, large forces, and rapid changes in momentum. Today’s fencing shoes are designed to facilitate footwork but they provide little plantar force dissipation. Plantar foot pressures and kinematics were measured in 13 fencers. The study compared fencing shoes to a standard court shoe. The court shoe resulted in a significant reduction in plantar pressures during the fencing lunge, advance-lunge, and fleche. However, most fencers preferred the fencing shoe for fencing. The court shoe tended to alter fencing kinematics, generally though not significantly decreasing the velocity of the front foot and the weapon hand, and increasing the range of motion and overall travel of the weapon hand. This effect on fencing mechanics may stem from the design of the court shoe, or from an accommodation effect.

EFFECT OF CUSTOM ORTHOTICS ON PEAK PLANTAR PRESSURE IN SUBJECTS WITH 7 OR MORE DEGREES OF FOREFOOT VARUS

The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of custom-made orthotics (Sole Supports, Inc., Bon Aqua, TN) on peak plantar pressure in subjects with ≥ 7 degrees of forefoot varus. Fourteen subjects (8 males, 6 females) (mean age = 29 ± 6 yrs; mean ht = 170.3 ± 7.9 cm; mean wt = 74.1 ± 15.4 kg) were assessed for goniometric measures of forefoot varus bilaterally. Subjects were excluded unless they had at least 7 or more degrees of forefoot varus bilaterally. Subjects were casted for custom-made orthotics using a dynamic casting technique (Sole Supports, Inc.). Orthotics were custom-made for each subject according to the casts. An EMED Pedar system (Novel Electronics, Inc., St. Paul, MN) was used to assess plantar pressures under 9 regions of the left foot. Subjects walked 30 meters on a level floor at an average preset velocity of 1.0 m/sec. The same standard court shoes were worn with and without orthotics by each subject during plantar pressure assessment. Results from paired t-tests indicated that wearing the orthotics significantly reduced peak pressure (p ≤ 0.05) in the medical heel, lateral heel, medial forefoot, and middle forefoot regions when compared to wearing a court shoe only. Peak plantar pressure was significantly increased in the midfoot, middle and lateral toe regions (p ≤ 0.05). These data suggest that wearing a custom-made orthotic may signficantly reduce peak plantar pressure in areas of the foot that may be at risk for injury such as the metatarsal and heel regions.

Current issues in the design of running and court shoes.

This review paper focuses on the three most important functional design factors for sport shoes: injury prevention, performance and comfort. Concepts for these design factors are discussed for running and court shoes. For running shoes, pronation control and cushioning are still considered to be the key concepts for injury prevention despite the fact that conclusive clinical and epidemiological evidence is missing to show the efficacy of these design strategies. Several design features have been proposed to be effective in controlling the amount of pronation. However, the kinematic effects of such features seem to be subject-specific and rather small especially when looking at the actual skeletal motion. Recent running shoe research suggests that cushioning may not or only marginally be related to injuries and that cushioning during the impact phase of running may be more related to aspects such as comfort, muscle tuning or fatigue. For court shoes, lateral stability, torsional flexibility, cushioning and traction control appear to be important design strategies to decrease the risk of injury. With respect to running performance, the shoe concepts of weight reduction, efficiency and energy return are discussed. The concept of energy return does not seem to be a feasible concept whereas concepts which aim to minimize energy loss appear to be more promising and successful, e.g. weight reduction, reduction of muscle energy required for stabilization. For court shoes, optimal traction seems to be the key factor for performance. Research in the area of shoe comfort is still sparse. Cushioning, fitting and climate concepts appear to improve the comfort of both running and court shoes. Many investigations in the area of sport shoe research have shown that subject-specific responses can be expected. Different groups of athletes may require different types of shoes. The definition of these grouping characteristics and their design needs seem to be the most important challenge for the sport shoe researchers and manufacturers for the near future.

FOOT STRUCTURE AND IN SHOE PLANTAR PRESSURE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN MALES AND FEMALES

519 Although athletic shoewear construction is reportedly different for males and females, a question remains as to whether there are, indeed, significant foot structure and plantar pressure differences between males and females to warrant these substantial shoe construction differences. The purpose of this study was to determine differences in the foot structure and in-shoe plantar pressures between males and females. Twenty males and 20 females, 20-35 years of age, participated in this study. Foot structure including the subtalar joint motion and forefoot-to-rearfoot relationship was determined using a goniometer. Peak plantar pressure (PP) was determined for nine different regions of both feet using the EMED Pedar in-shoe pressure measurement system as subjects walked on a level floor wearing provided court shoes. Results indicated that females had greater left (p=.008) and right (p=.043) calcaneal eversion and left (p=.001) and right (p=.032) forefoot varus than males. For the left foot, males had greater peak PP in the medial forefoot region (p=.009) than females; however, females had greater peak PP in the lateral forefoot (p=.017) and hallux regions (p=.012) than males. For the right foot, males had greater peak PP in the midfoot (p=.002) and lateral forefoot regions (p=.0006) than females. These results indicate that there are differences in foot structure and peak plantar pressure between males and females. In addition, the peak PP differences were located in different regions for each foot.

Shoe-surface interaction and injury prevention

One of the causes of injury in football is the development of excessive torque on the knee due to a combination of foot fixation and body rotation. Footwear fixation presents designers with a performance di lemma because of the need to develop sufficient translational friction and at the same time to minimise the development of rotational traction. While much research has been conducted on running and court shoes, little is known of the behaviour of field shoes in general and the traction at the shoe-surface interface in particular. The laws of friction between dry, solid, homogenous surfaces do not fully explain the mechanism of traction when one of the contacting surfaces is not smooth or solid but is granular and/or is wet, or when the footwear has cleats.

Heel movement within a court shoe

Lateral movements of the leg and foot were filmed from behind to evaluate court shoes. Inversion/eversion may be an indicator of potential injuries, but estimates of actual inversion/eversion have typically been measured as the angular displacement of marker pairs on the lower leg and on the shoe. The purpose of this study was to measure the shoe movement versus the heel movement inside the shoe in order to determine the appropriateness of using shoe markers to represent the heel position. Two windows were cut into the heel counter of the shoe to show the heel position in addition to shoe position. The subjects were filmed from behind during a lateral side-stepping movement. The difference between the shoe and heel position was [corrected] statistically significant. The average maximum change in heel inversion inside the shoe was 13.3 +/- 3.8 degrees, compared with 30.7 +/- 6.2 degrees for the shoe. In addition, the maximum change in heel inversion in a barefoot movement was 10.1 +/- 3.1 degrees. The results suggest that for a lateral movement shoe markers do not accurately represent the position of the heel, and heel movement inside a shoe is similar to a barefoot movement. Skin markers on the heel as observed through windows in the shoe give a better indication of the actual position of the calcaneus than do markers placed directly on the shoe.

Effect of floor conditions upon frictional characteristics of squash court shoes

Vertical (FN) and horizontal (FH) forces were recorded while four vertically-loaded court shoes were dragged horizontally across six types of floor surface. Variation in coefficient of limiting friction (FH/FN) between floor surfaces was greater than that between shoes. Squash strokes were also performed on the same surfaces during which FH/FN was calculated. Slips occurred on some surfaces either at heel contact or upon attainment of full-sole contact. It is concluded that the coefficient of limiting friction obtained during full-sole contact with the floor is a suitable means of distinguishing between tractional qualities of shoes. Alternatively, this measure is an inadequate predictor of the likelihood of slips in the game of squash racquets. Dusty floor conditions produce poor traction as does a damp sealed floor. As sweat droplets are unavoidable in the game, floors sealed with urethane represent a significant hazard. Bare, clean, wooden flooring which can absorb moisture represents a better surface than a sealed floor from the point of view of traction.

Civil Uniform and Court Shoes in Northampton Museum

Civil Uniform and Court Shoes in Northampton Museum