Relationship of hip strength to running mechanics in children aged 9 to 14 years

Kelly Sheerin , Chris Whatman , Patria Hume, James Croft

Prepared for Sport and Recreation New Zealand by Auckland University of Technology

2010

Sport and Recreation New Zealand

Kelly Sheerin

email: kelly.sheerin@aut.ac.nz

Background: Weakness of hip musculature that stabilises the lower leg may lead to poor lower limb alignment during running and subsequent injury.

Aims/objectives: To conduct a pilot study to determine the relationship of hip strength to running mechanics in young athletes aged 9 to 14 years, and to assess the effect of an eight-week strengthening intervention programme on strength, flexibility and running gait measures in young athletes aged 9 to 14 years.

Research design/methodology: Quantitative pre- and post-intervention assessment of 3D gait, strength and flexibility measurements.

Findings: The relationship of hip strength to running mechanics in young athletes was poor. Between-day reliability of knee ab/adduction measures during running demonstrated average to good reliability. The effect of an eight-week strengthening intervention on strength, flexibility and gait measures was small in most cases.

Conclusions/Significance of research: The gait measures could be a useful clinical screening tool, however, future research should continue to examine how these measures can be used for monitoring athletic movement development. The study was original in that it described for the first time the reliability of strength, flexibility and running gait measures in young athletes. The findings of this pilot study are useful to SPARC in that several gait mechanics variables changed over the period of the strengthening intervention. Therefore, education information provided to coaches, such as the Hip strengthening for improved running mechanics fact sheet for coaches may help reduce lower limb mal-alignment and decrease the risk of lower limb injury. Future work should:

• Determine more reliable strength and flexibility measures for young athletes.

• Include more volume for the intervention to increase the likelihood of an intervention effect.

• Increase the power of the study by increasing the number of participants.

• Monitor the effect of the coach education fact sheet with a sample of coaches.

• Examine how gait measures can be used for monitoring athletic movement development.

Keywords:

Hip strength; Lower limb gait; Intervention; Young athlete

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Quantitative

Auckland

Sport

Young People

Capability, Coaching, Injuries, Performance

Running/jogging

1461

July 2, 2013

July 18, 2013