Effects of Footwear on Impacts and Soft-Tissue Vibrations in Lower Extremity during Landings

Objective:To evaluate the effect of footwear on impact forces and soft-tissue vibrations during landing.Methods:12 male subjects were required to wear high-cushioning shoe(HS) and control shoe(CS) to perform drop jumps(DJ) and passive landings(PL) from 30 cm,45 cm,and 60 cm heights.3D Kinematics,ground reaction force(GRF),acceleration of the shoe heel counter and soft-tissue vibrations of the leg were collected and analyzed.Result:No significant shoe effect was shown neither in the characteristics of the impact force nor the resonance frequency and peak transmissibility of soft-tissue vibrations during DJ.However,HS showed a significantly lower magnitude of both peak GRF and heel accelerations(P<0.05) across all three heights than CS in PL;meanwhile,the GRF and heel acceleration frequency were decreased in the HS compared to CS.And there were also significant lower peak transmissibility in HS for both the quadriceps and hamstrings during the 60-cm height of passive landing(P<0.05).Conclusions:During the active landing,the influence of footwear on impacts and soft-tissue vibrations was insignificant.However,for the passive landing,the footwear would show a beneficial effect on preventing impact-related injuries through reducing impact force & input frequency,and minimizing soft tissue resonance.