Gender and age-group differences in hip muscle activity patterns in elite race walkers

Hanley, Brian, Bissas, Athanassios ORCID: 0000-0002-7858-9623 and Drake, A. (2017) Gender and age-group differences in hip muscle activity patterns in elite race walkers. Slovak Journal of Sport Science, 2 (1). pp. 1-8.

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Abstract

Race walking is a complex activity that relies on considerable power generation by the muscles at the hip joint. Little is known, however, whether differences are present in terms of muscle activity patterns between men and women, or between younger and older athletes. The purpose of this study was to compare hip muscle activity patterns in elite male and female race walkers across U20 and senior age groups. Ten male and ten female race walkers participated, with five U20 and five senior athletes of each gender. The athletes were recorded using high-speed videography (100 Hz) as they race walked down a 40 m runway, during which the muscle activity of the gluteus medius, gluteus maximus, biceps femoris and rectus femoris was recorded using electromyography (EMG) (1000 Hz). The hip sagittal angle was calculated from digitised data, and average rectified EMG used to identify visual differences between groups. No differences were found using ANOVA between any groups for the activity of any of the four muscles analysed at toe-off, midswing, heel-strike and midstance, although there were visual differences in activity timings. Overall the few differences between groups showed that race walking techniques are comparable across trained athletes and coaches can adopt similar training practices when developing the muscular qualities of their athletes.

Item Type:	Article
Article Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Athletes; Electromyography; Gait; Track and Field
Related URLs:	Repository
Subjects:	G Geography. Anthropology. Recreation > GV Recreation Leisure > GV557 Sports > GV1060 Track and field athletics Q Science > QP Physiology > QP301.H75 Physiology. Sport
Divisions:	Schools and Research Institutes > School of Education and Science
Research Priority Areas:	Health, Life Sciences, Sport and Wellbeing
Depositing User:	Kate Greenaway
Date Deposited:	16 Jan 2020 14:19
Last Modified:	31 Aug 2023 09:09
URI:	https://eprints.glos.ac.uk/id/eprint/7966

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