Effects of strengthening and stretching exercise programmes on kinematics and kinetics of running in older adults: a randomised controlled trial

ABSTRACT

The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of strengthening and stretching exercises on running kinematics and kinetics in older runners. One hundred and five runners (55–75 years) were randomly assigned to either a strengthening (n = 36), flexibility (n = 34) or control (n = 35) group. Running kinematics and kinetics were obtained using an eight-camera system and an instrumented treadmill before and after the eight-week exercise protocol. Measures of strength and flexibility were also obtained using a dynamometer and inclinometer/goniometer. A time effect was observed for the excursion angles of the ankle sagittal (P = 0.004, d = 0.17) and thorax/pelvis transverse (P < 0.001, d = 0.20) plane. Similarly, a time effect was observed for knee transverse plane impulse (P = 0.013, d = 0.26) and ground reaction force propulsion (P = 0.042, d = −0.15). A time effect for hip adduction (P = 0.006, d = 0.69), ankle dorsiflexion (P = 0.002, d = 0.47) and hip internal rotation (P = 0.048, d = 0.30) flexibility, and hip extensor (P = 0.001, d = −0.48) and ankle plantar flexor (P = 0.01, d = 0.39) strength were also observed. However, these changes were irrespective of exercise group. The results of the present study indicate that an eight-week stretching or strengthening protocol, compared to controls, was not effective in altering age-related running biomechanics despite changes in ankle and trunk kinematics, knee kinetics and ground reaction forces along with alterations in muscle strength and flexibility were observed over time.

KEYWORDS:

• Running
• biomechanics
• ageing
• exercise
• clinical trial

Acknowledgement

We thank Jill Baxter and Melissa Benson for helping with data collection and we thank Kent Bates and Martin Parnell for helping with participant recruitment. Finally, we thank Marcos Duarte for many fruitful discussions regarding this research.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Supplemental data

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the CAPES Foundation, Ministry of Education of Brazil (Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior) under Grant [number 0614/092]; and the Alberta Innovates: Health Solution (AI:HS) under Grant [number 200700478]. We declare that these organisations did not influence any part of this study from the conception to the decision regarding its publication.