Does Altering the Longitudinal Bending Stiffness of the Sprint Spike Affect Sprinting Performance?

• Published in: Lecture Notes in Bioengineering
• Main Author: Hazman M.H.H.M.; Arayama M.; Nunome H.; Ismail S.I.
• Format: Conference paper
• Language: English
• Published: Springer Science and Business Media Deutschland GmbH 2024
• Online Access: https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-85200469133&doi=10.1007%2f978-981-97-3741-3_5&partnerID=40&md5=0efb56f3f1dcd2c0bb7b40887d397af2

This study aimed to clarify whether altering the longitudinal bending stiffness of sprint spike could substantially affect sprinting performance among 100-m and 200-m sprinters. A total of five (n = 5) male sprint athletes volunteered in this study (shoe size UK 8.5; age = 20.4 ± 1.5 years old; height = 170.8 ± 4.7 cm; weight = 66.2 ± 3.9 kg). A Decathlon-made (model Kalenji AT Start-Ref. 8,504,517) sprint spike (UK size 8.5) has been chosen as a standard spike used in this study. The spike longitudinal bending stiffness was altered into three different stiffness (S1: lower; S2: original; S3: higher) by changing the spike insoles property (lowering the stiffness using PU foam insoles and increasing the stiffness using a 3-mm vinyl board). To test the sprint performance, all participants were requested to perform a 30-m fly sprint test using three different spike conditions in randomized order. It was found that on average, participants performed faster using S3 spike (3.42 ± 0.13), followed by S2 and S1 respectively (S2: 3.48 ± 0.19; S1: 3.53 ± 0.27). However, an analysis of variance indicated that statistically there were no significant differences in the sprint performance among the three-spike condition [F (2,44) = 1.06 (p = 0.36)]. In addition, individual results have shown only 3 out of 5 participants improved their sprint performance using the S3 spike. Differences in improvement achieved among the sprinters when using different spike stiffness in this study could suggest that there may be an optimum bending stiffness property that suits each person individually. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2024.