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No change in joint motion and impact seen after brief, high-intensity runs

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Researchers in Pittsburgh have found that in competitive runners, a brief, high-intensity run does not cause the same kinds of fatigue-related changes in running kinematics and shock absorption as a longer training run, according to a study published in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research.

The findings mean brief, intense runs could be a useful training approach to help runners reach peak aerobic function while reducing the risk of overuse injury.

“Implementing interval running will allow for cardiorespiratory adaptations while limiting the effects of neuromuscular fatigue and possibly injury,” John P. Abt, PhD, and colleagues wrote.

Two testing sessions

The research team examined a cohort of 12 healthy, competitive male and female distance runners. The runners underwent two testing sessions — one with a treadmill protocol designed to determine ventilatory threshold heart rate and one designed to induce fatigue through a running bout at the ventilatory threshold heart rate identified in the previous session.

Knee flexion, pronation, time to maximum knee flexion and time to maximum pronation were used by the research team as kinematic data points, with shank acceleration, head acceleration and shock attenuation serving as collected acceleration data.

Previous studies have suggested fatigue leading to altered joint motion and impact is an important contributor to overuse injuries in distance runners, but the researchers reported the fatigue associated with the brief runs in their study did not lead to any changes in kinematic and shock-absorption variables.

Gait patterns

The team noted the results may conflict with previous findings because runners may not modify their gait patterns in the same way on a treadmill as they would on a typical outdoor run, but added the findings do raise the possibility that brief, high-intensity training runs could provide many of the benefits of training with a lower risk of overuse injury.

“Future research is necessary to examine fatigue-induced changes in running kinematics and accelerations and to determine the threshold at which point the changes may occur,” the authors wrote.

References:

• Abt JP, Sell TC, Chu Y, et al. Running kinematics and shock absorption do not change after brief exhaustive running. J Strength Condit Res. 2011. doi: 10.1519/JSC.0b013e3181ddfcf8
• www.lww.com/

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