Influence of landing on the supination and pronation in the foot joint.

The purpose of this study was to measure the changes of supination and pronation in the ankle joint at landing to quantify the influence of shock attenuation during landing. The subjects did two different motions, jumping down on the force platform from posterior and lateral views. The rear view of single foot contact in a jump from height of 30 and 60 cm showed a landing on the inside of the rear part of the foot (pronation) followed after about 0.03 sec by a rolling outward of the foot (supination). The variables describing changes in three angles of the ankle joint indicated that the standing position was more sensitive on the pronation and supination during ground contact.

[Development of a functional fitness test for the elderly].

A test of functional fitness defined as physical capacity to independently perform daily functional activities was developed for aged persons. The functional fitness test was composed of four physical capacity evaluation tasks representing physical abilities necessary to perform main activities of daily living; viz. sitting and standing up test, zig-zag walking test, hand working test with pegboard for dexterity evaluation, and rope working test for self-care evaluation. The reliability and feasibility of the test were examined with 765 aged persons living in the community. The distribution of measurement values in each item showed neither extreme skewness nor kurtosis. Retest reliabilities for each task were 0.857 to 0.942, but the second trial showed significantly reduced (p < 0.001) values than the first trial in test-retest. Significant relationships (r = 0.503 to 0.627) between measurement values in each items and chronological age were found in both male and female. Functional fitness test and physical fitness test scores were correlated 0.740. These results showed that the functional fitness test developed in the present study has a high reliability and feasibility to evaluate functional capacity of daily living in aged persons.

[The effect of the motion of forefoot joint at the force exerted upon the floor during walking exercise].

In walking exercise the human body is exposed to external forces. Some of them are produced by constraints such as surface, shoes or opponent. In kick action of walking, the ground reaction force (GRF) is the most important external force. The magnitude of the GRF, its direction, and point of application have an influence on the load on the human body. The purpose of this study is to clarify the role of forefoot joint (artt. metatarsophalangeae) at the force exerted upon the floor during kick action of walking. The device used in this study to analyze the GRF and its three components consists of Kistler's force platform. Output from force transducer was collected online with a TEAC data recorder and MEM-4101 minicomputer. The impact force measurements were taken from the anterior-posterior force time curves at the take-off for 1 subject walking 10 trials at 2 m/sec with 2 different pairs of shoes (Shoes 1: thin sole of 4mm, and Shoes 2: thick sole of 40mm) and without shoes. High speed (200f/sec) cinematography was also used to analyze the angular displacement of forefoot joint at the take-off of walking exercise. The force acting at the forefoot joint may produce the anterior-posterior force of the GRF which is defined as the propelling power acting on the human body during walking exercise. The result showed that the impact force peak occurred 40-60 msec before take-off and the propelling part of kick action accounted for only about 6% of the external force.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

Characteristics of well-trained athletes in prolonged exercise from the viewpoint of aerobic power.

Aerobic power in prolonged exercise is related with the capability to continue exercise of an intensity corresponding to a fairly high percentage of V02 max besides the amount of V02 max itself. In the present study, the authors were led to the conclusion that the well-trained had excellent capability as regards physical resources and high adaptability to exercise and, accordingly, they showed more rapid acceleration of physiological functions than the untrained and could maintain high efficiency for oxygen supply through the whole course of exercise. Moreover, the increase in blood sugar content during exercise was marked in the trained, although exercise was considered to augment the uptake and consumption of sugar, but the increase in lactate content was comparatively small and that in serum FFA content was also rather low. Although the relative physiological work load seemed to be similar in both trained and untrained, the level of oxygen intake and the blood content during exercise were distinctly higher in the trained than in the untrained. These findings seemed to suggest the excellent aerobic power in the trained was helpful in augmentation of sugar oxidation.