The Effects of British Army Footwear on Ground Reaction Force and Temporal Parameters of British Army Foot Drill

Rawcliffe, AJ, Graham, SM, Simpson, RJ, Moir, GL, Martindale, RJ, Psycharakis, SG, and Connaboy, C. The effects of British Army footwear on ground reaction force and temporal parameters of British Army foot drill. J Strength Cond Res 34(3): 754–762, 2020—High rates of occupational training-related lower-limb musculoskeletal (MSK) overuse injuries are reported for British Army recruits during basic training. Foot drill is a repetitive impact loading occupational activity and involves striking the ground violently with an extended-knee (straight-leg) landing. Foot drill produces vertical ground reaction force (vGRF) equal to or greater than those reported for high-level plyometric exercises/activities. Shock absorbing footwear aid in the attenuation of the magnitude of vGRF, resulting in a reduced risk of lower-limb MSK overuse injury when running. The potential shock absorbing characteristics of standard issue British Army footwear on the magnitude of vGRF and temporal parameters of foot drill are scant. Therefore, this study sought to determine the magnitude of and examine changes in vGRF and temporal parameters of foot drill across 3 types of British Army footwear. Sampled at 1,000 Hz, the mean of 8 trials from 15 recreationally active men were collected from 4 foot drills; stand-at-ease, stand-at-attention, quick-march (QM), and halt. Analysis of a normal walk was included to act as a comparison with QM. Significant main effects (P ≤ 0.05) were observed between footwe...
Source: Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research - Category: Sports Medicine Tags: Original Research Source Type: research