Correlation between knee related injury and biomechanics in distance runners

Abstract

Running is a modality with a great number of practitioners in Indonesia, both due to its easiness of practice and its health benefits and low cost involved. The knee is the most common site of overuse running injuries, accounting to close 50% of all injuries. The cause of running related injuries include inadequate muscle strength and flexibility, structural or functional abnormalities, inappropriate running surfaces, overuse or overtraining, improper shoes, and inefficient running mechanics. The purpose of this study was to identify biomechanical and anthropometric variables that contribute to knee related injury in runners. Comparisons were made between a group of runners who had sustained knee pain in running injury and a group of runners who had been knee pain free throughout their running careers. Group were well matched in important training variables such as anthropometric and biomechanics variables. The knee pain demonstrated significantly greater weekly mileage, poor hamstring flexibility, greater Q-angle, longer stride length, heel strike and over pronation of foot. The results of the present study suggest that subjects who utilize a running stride characterized by relatively low impact forces and a moderately rapid rate of pronation are at a reduced risk of incurring overuse running injuries stride length, also characterized as step length. There are few, if any, I Gusti Ngurah Wien Aryana1, Ida Ayu Arrisna Artha2 Affiliations: 1Department of Orthopaedic Surgery Orthopaedic Division Staff, Indonesia; 2Department of Orthopaedic Surgery Resident, University of Udayana/Sanglah General Hospital Denpasar, Indonesia. Corresponding Author: I Gusti Ngurah Wien Aryana, Departement of Orthopaedic Surgery Orthopaedic Division Staff, Indonesia; Email: [email protected] Received: 14 September 2018 Accepted: 21 January 2019 Published: 18 February 2019 significant associations between gait, strength, and anthropometrics and injury frequency. Most of these risk factors could potentially be modified to reduce joint loads to lower the risk of injury.