Portable Technologies Power study to be distinguished between the treadmill, outdoor running in the risk of injury

If researchers examine runners, they had to carry out these studies with a treadmill until recently.

But running on a treadmill and running outside – like most runners – is not the same. This has meant that scientific studies that want to inform our understanding of how running -related injuries occur and how they can prevent them are not always transferable to the real world.

With the advent of reliable portable technologies, researchers can now capture data from runners outside the laboratory.

In a new study published in the Journal of Orthopedic and Sports Physical Therapy (Jost Open), it examined how two important measures in connection with running injuries differ on a treadmill, in the course of the treadmill on a flat sidewalk.

“In our laboratory we really try to bring things out of the laboratory,” says Laurie Devaney, Associate Professor-in-Residence and Head of the Department of Kinesiology. “So this was an attempt to look at the real armed forces and see how they stack against a treadmill against races.”

Michelle Bruneau '23 (Cahnr), a former Ph.D. The candidate was the first author in this paper. Today it is postdoctoral research scholarship holder in the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at the Harvard Medical School and the Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital.

28 healthy, male and female adult runners were used in the study. The participants ran eight kilometers on the treadmill and the street, while wore ankle and breast sensors to track their step rate and tibia acceleration.

The step rate is a measure of how many steps the runners take over a certain distance. Tibial acceleration is a proxy for impact load during a run.

“When we deal with running-related injuries, we know that things like the step rate and the Tibia acceleration can be associated with these injuries, in particular with injuries with bone voltages [like tibial stress fractures and shin pain]“, Says Devaney.

The researchers found that the step rates in both environments, when the runners were outdoors, existed in the course of the runners in the course of the run in the course of the run. This is good because an increased step rate reduces the power of each step and better protects the runner from injuries.

Another significant difference is that the top acceleration outdoors was greater than on the treadmill.

“If we think about this concept of forces and accumulated forces, it is probably larger in an outdoor run than on the treadmill,” says Devaney.

Using additional data collected during this study, the researchers have a further publication that focuses on data acquisition data. This data provides information on how the runners were moving and what this informs the researchers about the risk of injury.

This research also has applications for cadets in Rotc programs and military members who often suffer from the same types of injuries as runners.

“If we have opportunities to measure them on site, we will be better able to identify some of the culprits that lead to these injuries and change them,” says Devaney.

If portable technologies are better and more diverse, there are only more opportunities to study people in real environments than just in the laboratory.

“These increased forces are important for running -related injuries, and our measurements on the treadmill are not necessarily synonymous with what we see in real use,” says Devaney. “[We’re] Really encouraged researchers and clinicians, to take these differences into account and to move to the ability to measure people outdoors. “

This work receives Improvement of health and well -being locally, national and global.

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