JC's Musings

Forearm Loading for Sprinting

No items found.

Just following up on the post on the arm swing and bringing a little wearable resistance (WR) into the movement now. I have been involved in three peer reviewed articles looking at the effects of forearm loading in sprinting.

Let’s look at one study (https://lnkd.in/g4CAr26) that involved loading the forearms of 14 track sprinters with 2% body mass (BM) and quantifying the changes over 30 m with force plates and 3D motion capture. Some of the statistically significant findings were:
· No change in 0-30 m sprint times
· Increases in relative propulsive impulse (5.48%) over most phases and step length (4.01%) over 1st acceleration phase
· Over last acceleration phase, stride frequency was lower (-4.86%) and flight time (7.70%) and vertical impulse increased (4.12%)

We concluded, sprinting with forearm loads may be used to develop longer stride lengths by generating greater horizontal propulsion during early acceleration and promote alterations to step frequency and flight time imposed through greater vertical loading demands over the later phases of accelerated sprinting.

A training study is really needed to see where this goes.