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Elite long jumpers with below the knee prostheses approach the board slower, but take-off more effectively than non-amputee athletes

The use of technological aids to improve sport performance (‘techno doping’) and inclusion of Paralympic athletes in Olympic events are matters of ongoing debate. Recently, a long jumper with a below the knee amputation (BKA) achieved jump distances similar to world-class athletes without amputation...

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Autores principales: Willwacher, Steffen, Funken, Johannes, Heinrich, Kai, Müller, Ralf, Hobara, Hiroaki, Grabowski, Alena M., Brüggemann, Gert-Peter, Potthast, Wolfgang
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group UK 2017
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5700183/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29167568
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-16383-5
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author Willwacher, Steffen
Funken, Johannes
Heinrich, Kai
Müller, Ralf
Hobara, Hiroaki
Grabowski, Alena M.
Brüggemann, Gert-Peter
Potthast, Wolfgang
author_facet Willwacher, Steffen
Funken, Johannes
Heinrich, Kai
Müller, Ralf
Hobara, Hiroaki
Grabowski, Alena M.
Brüggemann, Gert-Peter
Potthast, Wolfgang
author_sort Willwacher, Steffen
collection PubMed
description The use of technological aids to improve sport performance (‘techno doping’) and inclusion of Paralympic athletes in Olympic events are matters of ongoing debate. Recently, a long jumper with a below the knee amputation (BKA) achieved jump distances similar to world-class athletes without amputations, using a carbon fibre running-specific prosthesis (RSP). We show that athletes with BKA utilize a different, more effective take-off technique in the long jump, which provided the best athlete with BKA a performance advantage of at least 0.13 m compared to non-amputee athletes. A maximum speed constraint imposed by the use of RSPs would indicate a performance disadvantage for the long jump. We found slower maximum sprinting speeds in athletes with BKA, but did not find a difference in the overall vertical force from both legs of athletes with BKA compared to non-amputees. Slower speeds might originate from intrinsically lower sprinting abilities of athletes with BKA or from more complex adaptions in sprinting mechanics due to the biomechanical and morphological differences induced by RSPs. Our results suggest that due to different movement strategies, athletes with and without BKA should likely compete in separate categories for the long jump.
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spelling pubmed-57001832017-11-30 Elite long jumpers with below the knee prostheses approach the board slower, but take-off more effectively than non-amputee athletes Willwacher, Steffen Funken, Johannes Heinrich, Kai Müller, Ralf Hobara, Hiroaki Grabowski, Alena M. Brüggemann, Gert-Peter Potthast, Wolfgang Sci Rep Article The use of technological aids to improve sport performance (‘techno doping’) and inclusion of Paralympic athletes in Olympic events are matters of ongoing debate. Recently, a long jumper with a below the knee amputation (BKA) achieved jump distances similar to world-class athletes without amputations, using a carbon fibre running-specific prosthesis (RSP). We show that athletes with BKA utilize a different, more effective take-off technique in the long jump, which provided the best athlete with BKA a performance advantage of at least 0.13 m compared to non-amputee athletes. A maximum speed constraint imposed by the use of RSPs would indicate a performance disadvantage for the long jump. We found slower maximum sprinting speeds in athletes with BKA, but did not find a difference in the overall vertical force from both legs of athletes with BKA compared to non-amputees. Slower speeds might originate from intrinsically lower sprinting abilities of athletes with BKA or from more complex adaptions in sprinting mechanics due to the biomechanical and morphological differences induced by RSPs. Our results suggest that due to different movement strategies, athletes with and without BKA should likely compete in separate categories for the long jump. Nature Publishing Group UK 2017-11-22 /pmc/articles/PMC5700183/ /pubmed/29167568 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-16383-5 Text en © The Author(s) 2017 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
spellingShingle Article
Willwacher, Steffen
Funken, Johannes
Heinrich, Kai
Müller, Ralf
Hobara, Hiroaki
Grabowski, Alena M.
Brüggemann, Gert-Peter
Potthast, Wolfgang
Elite long jumpers with below the knee prostheses approach the board slower, but take-off more effectively than non-amputee athletes
title Elite long jumpers with below the knee prostheses approach the board slower, but take-off more effectively than non-amputee athletes
title_full Elite long jumpers with below the knee prostheses approach the board slower, but take-off more effectively than non-amputee athletes
title_fullStr Elite long jumpers with below the knee prostheses approach the board slower, but take-off more effectively than non-amputee athletes
title_full_unstemmed Elite long jumpers with below the knee prostheses approach the board slower, but take-off more effectively than non-amputee athletes
title_short Elite long jumpers with below the knee prostheses approach the board slower, but take-off more effectively than non-amputee athletes
title_sort elite long jumpers with below the knee prostheses approach the board slower, but take-off more effectively than non-amputee athletes
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5700183/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29167568
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-16383-5
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