Ground reaction forces, bone characteristics, and tibial stress fracture in male runners

Abstract

These findings support the contention that bone geometry plays a role in stress fracture development and that male athletes with smaller bones in relation to body size are at greater risk for this bony injury.

Analysis of acceleration time of ankle in long-distance runners and triathletes

“…29,30 Muscle fatigue around the ankle has been correlated with the pathophysiology of stress fractures in sports that involve running 32 due to the loss of the eccentric contraction capacity of the dorsiflexors during heel strike 33 caused by a decline in proprioception of the mechanical stress on the cortical bone layer. 31 This phenomenon might also explain the difficulty encountered by the groups of athletes during the testing of the eccentric dorsiflexor at a 180°/s velocity, which was analyzed qualitatively and presented no statistically significant differences.…”

“…11 This isokinetic variable has been correlated with the nerve conduction velocity. 7 Because it is well established that the isokinetic muscle characteristics for any given sport reflect specific features and demands of the sport practice, [11][12][13][14][15] analysis of the variable "acceleration time" in running and triathlon athletes is essential in order to draw up further strategies for injury prevention programs. Moreover, there is a scarcity of data on this variable in isokinetic ankle tests, and such tests need to be reproducible for better sports practice.…”

“…4 In fact, in longdistance aerobic sports such as running and the triathlon, the lower limbs are often the sites of overload injuries. 31 Adequate proprioception of the ankle is essential for promoting dynamic and functional stability of the ankle in extreme sports, such as long distance running and triathlon. 22 It seems that deficits of the proprioceptive system are the main causes of muscle weakness and postural instability.…”

Tibial Stress Injuries: Aetiology, Classification, Biomechanics and the Failure of Bone

“…Burr, 1997;Bennell et al, 1999;Brukner et al, 2000), and to a lesser extent, MTSS (e.g. Moen et al, 2009).…”

“…In male military cohorts, parameters which have been associated with tibial SFs include a narrow mediolateral (ML) width at the narrowest tibial cross-section (Giladi et al, 1991;Giladi et al, 1987) and small diaphyseal dimensions relative to body weight (Beck et al, 1996). In both male military cohorts and male athletes, a low cortical bone cross-sectional area (Beck et al, 1996;Crossley et al, 1999;Franklyn et al, 2008), small second moments of area (Milgrom et al, 1989;Franklyn et al, 2008) and a small section modulus (Beck et al, 1996;Franklyn et al, 2008) have been associated with increased tibial SF risk. A major limitation with many of these studies is that only basic cross-sectional dimensions have been measured from the images, and when they are then used to calculate parameters such as the cross-sectional area, introduce significant error for an irregularly shaped object such as a tibial section.…”