Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Impact Of Parity On Gait Biomechanics, Bekah P. Stein

Masters Theses

Background: Symptomatic knee osteoarthritis (OA) is an incurable condition that affects nearly 50% of adults, and women are twice as likely as men to develop OA. Throughout pregnancy, women experience large changes in morphology and gait mechanics, as well as changes in joint loading. It is possible these adaptations could cause lasting changes postpartum, which may potentially contribute to initiation of OA, thereby increasing the overall risk of OA for women.

Purpose: This exploratory study looked to identify differences between lower limb gait mechanics of healthy nulliparous women and healthy parous women.

Methods: 28 healthy female participants (14 parous, 14 …

Kinetic Asymmetries During Submaximal And Maximal Speed Running, Devon H. Frayne

Masters Theses

An important issue for sports scientists, coaches and athletes is an understanding of the factors within a running stride that can enhance or limit maximal running speed. Previous research has identified many sprint-related parameters as potential kinetic limiters of maximal Center of Mass velocity (Chapman and Caldwell, 1983b; Weyand et al., 2001). Bilateral asymmetry is present for many of these parameters during running; however the degree to which such asymmetries change as running speed increases is unknown. It was hypothesized that asymmetries in key sprinting parameters would be larger at maximal speed than all other tested speeds. Kinematics and kinetics …