Here’s what the sports science team at IMeasureU is reading this week:
This first study of this weeks articles of the week comes from Colin Firminger and colleagues at the University of Calgary in Medicine & Science in Sport & Exercise. They investigated how incorporating mechanical fatigue principles into Achilles tendon cumulative load measurements affected their relationship with running speed. This article supports the concept of using an exponential weighting term on the load magnitude (Bone Stimulus) for the Achilles tendon.
The second article in this weeks list comes from Chris Bishop and colleagues at Middlesex University in the Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research. Their aim was to see if there was an association between asymmetry changes across a football season and speed and change of direction performance. They found that reductions of asymmetry that may indirectly enhance athletic performance cannot be made.
The final article comes from Ben Macdonald and colleagues at the British Athletics National Performance Institute and Loughborough University in the Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research. This study investigated the effectiveness of the single-leg Roman hold and Nordic hamstring curl in improving hamstring strength-endurance as tested by the single leg hamstring bridge. Their results suggest that 6-week single-leg Roman chair training substantially improved single leg hamstring bridge performance while the Nordic hamstring curl did not.
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