A Comparative Study of Dynamic Balance in Shod and Unshod Conditions Among Long Distance Runners (original) (raw)

Background: Every year, about 60% of distance runners suffer running related injury that eventually affects their training and have a long-term psychological and physical effect. Dynamic balance plays a very important role in the running activity. Proper balance control is important to prevent injuries. But up to date there was not a study which has studied whether wearing running shoe compromise dynamic stability of long distance runners Objective: To compare whether dynamic balance differ from long distance runners with shoe and without shoes. Method: The runners were selected by using convenient sampling method. For this purpose, 12 subjects aged between 16 and 25 years who fulfilled inclusion criteria have participated in this study. The demographics such as height, weight hip and waist ratio and limb length was recorded. The dynamic balance was tested by using the star-excursion balance test (SEBT). The subjects were tested with shoes and without shoes on both the lower limbs. Results: SPSS 16.0 version was used. Homogeneity was tested. There is no significant difference in SEBT with and without shoes in all eight directions. The p-value are as follows in eight directions along anterior (A)<0.01, anterolateral(AL) 0.879 , lateral(L)-0.098, posterolateral(PL)-0.346, posterior(P)-0.486, posteromedial(PM)-0.902, medial-0.247 anteromedial (AM)-0.571. Conclusion: There was not any significant statistical difference found between subject with shoes and without shoe in evaluating dynamic balance.