INJURY & PERFORMANCE
SURFACE
maintenance, durability, aesthetics, etc.
most important factors is the playability of the surface, or the
surface with the athlete. It is commonly believed that sport surfaces can influence both injuries and performance.
Human Performance Laboratory University of Calgary, Canada
Darren J. Stefanyshyn Associate Professor
interaction of the Undeniably one of the
designed and installed with various factors in mind: cost,
Sport surfaces are
PLAYER surface interaction rarely receives the attention it deserves. This is likely due to several factors. One is that this interaction can be complex so researchers are still trying to understand it while a second is the shortage of communication between researchers and practitioners. This article tries to address this shortage by presenting some current concepts of player surface interaction related to injury and performance.
Injury
A variety of different factors of sport surfaces have been proposed to be associated with the development of sports injuries:
• non-uniformity of their mechanical characteristics,
• too high or too low friction between the surface and the shoe,
• lack of surface deformation or high surface stiffness.
Most of the proposed associations between surface characteristics and related injuries are not well supported by experimental evidence. In the early days of sport surface research, a relationship between sport injuries and the cushioning or hardness of a surface was often proposed. However, newer epidemiological data show that there is no supporting evidence for the assumption that hard surfaces produce
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more surface related injuries than soft surfaces. In contrast, there is epidemiological evidence that there is no difference in sport surface related injury frequencies between hard and soft surfaces. There is some disagreement in the
current literature as to the different factors of sport surfaces that are actually related to injury. One potential reason is that most of the variables studied can be considered indirect indications of the most likely source of the pain or injury, excessive loading. Recently, there is growing evidence indicating that excessive joint moments (torque) may be related to both overuse and traumatic sport injuries. Resultant joint moments are a net result of all the muscle, tendon and ligament forces acting at a joint. They provide an indication of the overall load that is experienced at a joint during a given movement. (see Figure 1) Excessive knee joint moments in the
frontal and transverse planes lead to torsion and bending stresses in the knee and ankle joint. These moments have been related to overuse injuries such as patellofemoral pain syndrome, long term degenerative changes such as osteoarthritis and traumatic injuries such as anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) ruptures and ankle sprains. Differences in surfaces can influence the joint loading. One way is through different friction characteristics. Friction
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