Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Does Age Influence Dynamic Stability And Muscular Power Following Neuromuscular Fatigue In Women?, Ben J. Hoffmann

Masters Theses

Older adults, especially older women, produce less muscular power than young adults, due primarily to slower maximal contractile velocity. These decrements may lead to increased fall risk in older women and can be exacerbated by fatigue. Recently, a 32 min walking task (32MWT) was shown to elicit fatigue in older women. The purpose of this study was to determine whether knee extensor (KE) maximal velocity is related to dynamic stability (margin of stability, MoS) in young and older women pre- and post-32MWT. METHODS: Nine young (Y; 24.3+1.1years, mean±SE) and 17 older (O; 71.1±1.1years) healthy women completed 2 testing sessions on …

Gait Changes During Exhaustive Running, Nathaniel I. Smith

Masters Theses

Runners adopt altered gait patterns as they fatigue which may increase energy expenditure and susceptibility to certain overuse injuries. Previous investigations have described changes in muscle performance and kinematic gait variables resulting from running fatigue. The purpose of this investigation was to characterize changes in joint moment patterns that develop as runners fatigue in order to better understand the kinetic bases for kinematic fatigue effects. It was hypothesized that when fatigued, runners would demonstrate increases in stance time, peak stance phase knee flexion angle, peak knee extension moment, peak swing phase hip flexion moment, and hip extension and plantarflexion angular …

Does Footfall Pattern In Forefoot Runners Change Over A Prolonged Run?, Carl W. Jewell

Masters Theses

There has been much debate on the benefits of a forefoot versus rearfoot strike pattern in distance running in terms of performance and injury prevalence. Shock attenuation occurs more prominently in soft tissues at impact in forefoot runners compared to the passive skeletal loading in rearfoot runners. Recent studies indicate that a forefoot strike pattern may not be maintainable over long distance efforts. Therefore, this study tested the hypothesis that habitual forefoot runners could not maintain their strike pattern throughout a prolonged, intensive run.

Fourteen forefoot runners ran to voluntary exhaustion on an instrumented force treadmill (average run duration: 15.4±2.2 …