Science reveals why fast bowlers are more injury-prone than others
April 27th, 2011 - 1:10 pm ICT by ANIMelbourne, Apr 27(ANI): Cricket fast bowlers are more injury-prone than others, and the practice of creating their own custom footwear could be making things worse, according to a new study.
The report, by a team from the University of South Australia, is based on a research on the biomechanical effects of three cricket shoes commonly used by fast bowlers at the Australasian Podiatry Conference in Melbourne.
“During bowling three different forces act at the front and back foot and the magnitude of these differ between the feet,” ABC Science quoted the lead researcher, masters student Chris Bishop, as saying.
“The largest forces are the vertical forces which are attenuated directly up the leg and they can be anything from five to nine times the individual’s body weight, so they really are quite large forces.”
“The braking forces can be in the vicinity of two to four times body weight,” he added.
Bishop also said that the forces are largest at front foot strike because of the higher acceleration as it hits the ground.
“The main thing we’re seeing in our results is the effect of footwear on the front knee. We’re seeing that the custom modified shoe seems to be increasing that external rotation moment, which we think could be a mechanism of injury,” Bishop said.
Dr. Dominic Thewlis, who is a co-author of the research, said that stress fractures of the tibia are another common injury.
“[What happens] when you load a bone repeatedly with a very high load, which these fast bowlers do during periods of activity and particularly in Test match cricket, is that it doesn’t actually give the bone sufficient opportunity to recover properly,” Dr. Thewlis said.
For the study, Bishop and Dr. Thewlis compared two models of top-selling cricket shoes against custom modified shoes.
Four fast bowlers bowled three overs each, wearing a different pair of shoes for each set of six balls.
The bowlers’ techniques and the forces involved were examined using a system of 20 cameras and force platforms to measure both front leg and back leg heel strike. (ANI)
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Tags: abc science, acceleration, balls, chris bishop, co author, custom footwear, dominic, external rotation, foot strike, magnitude, masters student, melbourne, nine times, periods, researcher, test match cricket, tibia, university of south australia, vertical forces, vicinity