Foot, Shoe and Surface Interaction: American Football Example

Because it’s Halloween today, I thought I’d post on a subject that is scary to many athletes these days: the dreaded non-contact sports injury. What is really going on?
How an athlete interfaces and interacts with the ground is incredibly important. I’ve been taking more and more high speed video at no less than 120 frames per second so that I can analyze ground contact dynamics for different sports.
In this case, I have isolated on pre-game drills for American football by position group. Each position group and individual have different movement signatures and patterns they exhibit. These ground contacts not only define the position, but also give us clues on how we can improve performance and minimize injury.
Is the foot contacting the ground properly? Are there any issues with regard to shoe design and fit? How is that shoe interacting with the surface of the ground? Is the foot plant stable or is there some wobble or instability? Does the task require a heel strike, mid-foot contact or dorsi-flexed strategy? Are there asymmetries between the right and left foot contact? Are these asymmetries due to sport specificity or an actual biomechanical deficiency on the part of the athlete? Is an athlete on the ground too long, or are they off the ground too quick?
These are all great questions, and until we start analyzing ground contact dynamics more closely, we may be missing a big part of performance and injury prevention. I’ll be posting more examples of training and competition throughout the year for different sports. It’s not a foot fetish, but more importantly an analysis of how athletes are managing gravity and adapting to their environment.
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