Influence of the Shod Condition on Running Power Output: An Analysis in Recreationally Active Endurance Runners

Abstract

Several studies have already analysed power output in running or the relation between VO2max and power production as factors related to running economy; however, there are no studies assessing the difference in power output between shod and barefoot running. This study aims to identify the effect of footwear on the power output endurance runner. Forty-one endurance runners (16 female) were evaluated at shod and barefoot running over a one-session running protocol at their preferred comfortable velocity (11.71 ± 1.07 km·h−1). The mean power output (MPO) and normalized MPO (MPOnorm), form power, vertical oscillation, leg stiffness, running effectiveness and spatiotemporal parameters were obtained using the Stryd™ foot pod system. Additionally, footstrike patterns were measured using high-speed video at 240 Hz. No differences were noted in MPO (p = 0.582) and MPOnorm (p = 0.568), whereas significant differences were found in form power, in both absolute (p = 0.001) and relative values (p < 0.001), running effectiveness (p = 0.006), stiffness (p = 0.002) and vertical oscillation (p < 0.001). By running barefoot, lower values for contact time (p < 0.001) and step length (p = 0.003) were obtained with greater step frequency (p < 0.001), compared to shod running. The prevalence of footstrike pattern significantly differs between conditions, with 19.5% of runners showing a rearfoot strike, whereas no runners showed a rearfoot strike during barefoot running. Running barefoot showed greater running effectiveness in comparison with shod running, and was consistent with lower values in form power and lower vertical oscillation. From a practical perspective, the long-term effect of barefoot running drills might lead to increased running efficiency and leg stiffness in endurance runners, affecting running economy.

Track Running Shoes: A Case Report of the Transition from Classical Spikes to “Super Spikes” in Track Running

“…Among the various factors affecting running performance, shoes play an important role because the construction characteristics can have implications for running injuries and performance [3]. The volume of literature about running shoes has strongly increased in the past decade [4][5][6]. At the same time, the attention of researchers has mainly focused on shoes for long-distance running rather than track shoes.…”

Hang-Time HAR: A Benchmark Dataset for Basketball Activity Recognition Using Wrist-Worn Inertial Sensors

“…It has already been proven for a variety of different sports, such as running [37][38][39], ball sports [36,[40][41][42][43][44], winter sports [45,46], sports for the disabled [47], or fitness [48][49][50][51], that activity recognition algorithms are capable of detecting specific activities tied to these sports based on IMU data as input. Other studies that incorporated IMUs focus rather on the athletes' performance [52][53][54][55] or gait estimation [56,57] than activity recognition. Basketball has been studied by several works using IMU sensor data beginning in 2014.…”