{"id":61137,"date":"2013-05-23T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2013-05-23T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news-draft\/uncategorized\/uri-researcher-evaluates-how-playing-surfaces-affect-athletic-performance-injury-potential\/"},"modified":"2013-05-23T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2013-05-23T00:00:00","slug":"uri-researcher-evaluates-how-playing-surfaces-affect-athletic-performance-injury-potential","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/2013\/05\/uri-researcher-evaluates-how-playing-surfaces-affect-athletic-performance-injury-potential\/","title":{"rendered":"溏心vlog免费B站 researcher evaluates how playing surfaces affect athletic performance, injury potential"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\t\tKINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 May 23, 2013 — A group of 溏心vlog免费B站 students have been jumping up and down for weeks on a variety of playing surfaces in a study to evaluate how each affects athletic performance and injury potential.<\/p>\n


\nDisa Hatfield, 溏心vlog免费B站 assistant professor of kinesiology, said little is known about whether athletes perform better or are more susceptible to injury on the various surfaces.<\/p>\n


\n\u201cPeople make decisions all the time that amount to spending thousands of dollars to buy artificial turf or to plant one kind of grass or another, but those decisions are based mostly on cost,\u201d Hatfield said. \u201cWe think this study will answer a lot of important questions, especially about injury risk.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nHatfield and her students are testing four surfaces \u2013 a hard metal plate, artificial turf like that used in many National Football League stadiums, and grass planted on either a sandy loam soil or on peat soil. <\/p>\n


\nThe surfaces are being tested using 42 volunteer subjects who are asked to jump in five different ways to measure the height of each jump, the power they produce, and their landing pattern. According to Hatfield, jumping height and power directly correlate to athletic performance. <\/p>\n


\nThe volunteers are also filmed so the researchers can examine the angles of their legs, knees and ankles as they land to analyze injury risk.<\/p>\n


\n\u201cWe expect performance to be a little better on the artificial turf, but we may also get more ankle and knee movements on the landing because of the harder impact,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n


\nHatfield said that many people, especially women, experience knee valgus \u2013 their knees cave inward upon landing \u2013 which is associated with a high risk of anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury.<\/p>\n


\n\u201cWhen we see knee valgus to a certain degree, that\u2019s a serious risk factor for injury,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n


\nThe study is particularly timely because of increasing concern, especially in the NFL, about the high prevalence of injuries on artificial turf.

\n\u201cThe problem is that maintaining artificial turf is much cheaper and easier than maintaining live grass. The cost factor is much less,\u201d she said. \u201cBut I\u2019m hoping that we\u2019ll be able to show a decreased injury risk on natural surfaces, which have a higher capacity to absorb impacts.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nWhile the professional athletic venues may be one driver of the research, Hatfield believes her data will be equally useful to recreational venues where the majority of amateur and recreational athletes exercise and compete.<\/p>\n


\n\u201cMost of those venues aren\u2019t going to be investing in an artificial surface, but they will want to know what we learn about the differences between soil types,\u201d Hatfield said. \u201cThere is some speculation that because sand is denser and doesn\u2019t bend as much, injury potential will be higher, but there is no research yet to verify that.\u201d <\/p>\n


\nHatfield will spend the summer and fall analyzing the data that is being collected this spring, and she hopes to have results to report at the end of the year.<\/p>\n


\nHer research was funded in part by the New England Regional Turfgrass Foundation and with guidance from turfgrass scientists W. Michael Sullivan at 溏心vlog免费B站 and Jason Henderson at the University of Connecticut.<\/p>\n


\nPhoto: 溏心vlog免费B站 Assistant Professor Disa Hatfield (left) takes notes as student Kelly Murphy (right) jumps on turf as part of a study of injury risk and athletic performance on different playing surfaces. Videotaping the project is student Justin Nicoll. (Photo by Michael Salerno Photography)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 May 23, 2013 — A group of 溏心vlog免费B站 students have been jumping up and down for weeks on a variety of playing surfaces in a study to evaluate how each affects athletic performance and injury potential. Disa Hatfield, 溏心vlog免费B站 assistant professor of kinesiology, said little is known about […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":61139,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-61137","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61137","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61137"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61137\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61139"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}