Perspectives Winter/Spring 2019

NOVA SOUTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY | 13 How runners apply forces to the ground relates directly to performance and injury prevention. In 2018, I teamed up with fellow faculty mem- bers, athletic trainers, coaches, and under- graduate students who were willing to go the extra mile in the Exercise and Sport Science Lab to study the biomech- anics of running. Distance runners apply forces of 1.5 to 2 times their body weight at initial impact, with lower forces being desirable for injury prevention. Research from NSU’s Exercise and Sport Science Lab supports low forces as also characteristic of those collegiate runners earning higher race finishes. Ian McQuate, a 2018 B.S. in Exercise and Sport Science graduate, had a group of NSU distance runners come into the lab and run on an instrumented treadmill while their mechanics were collected by a 10-camera, motion-capture system. He then tracked their race-place finishes for the next three months. McQuate presented his “Gait Pathomechanics as Differentiators of Performance in Collegiate Distance Runners: A Team Case Analysis” research in September at the International Society of Biomechanics in Sports (ISBS) Conference in Auckland, New Zealand. His research highlighted that top-performing distance runners did not produce the high-impact forces, nor did they have excessive hip, pelvis, and rear-foot motions like the bottom-performing runners. Better runners simply ran better. In a study of lower-extremity injuries in collegiate distance runners, Dustin Gatens, M.S., LAT, ATC, former NSU athletic trainer for research and develop- ment, and I showed that runners who had greater hip adduction motion during stance were more likely to sustain a running-related injury. The research picked up speed when I teamed up with coach and adjunct faculty member Pete Bommarito, M.S., CSCS, and associate professor Corey Peacock, Ph.D., CSCS, CISSN, to evaluate running biomechanics of elite American football players. Running is integral to foot- ball, and players across multiple positions are required to sprint in situations that directly influ- ence the game’s outcome. These bouts are usually 15–20 yards, and players do not typically reach their top speed. Faster sprinters will apply greater maximum forces over small ground contact times. Bommarito, Peacock, and I found that certain position players (i.e., lineman, tight ends) hit the ground harder than other positions (i.e., wide receivers, running backs) and keep their feet on the ground longer. They may be adopting some of the charac- teristics of sprinters, but not all. Our findings, which may be useful for improving speed mechanics, also were presented at the ISBS Conference and Expo. The pace of running biomechanics research continues with ongoing projects involving collegiate distance runners and other field-sport runners. † G. Monique Mokha is a professor in the Health and Human Performance— Exercise and Sport Science B.S. Program—Fort Lauderdale. Right: A football player takes part in sub-max sprinting on the instrumented treadmill that measures forces. Below: Ian McQuate presents at the ISBS Conference and Expo in Auckland, New Zealand.