Browsing by Author "Senevirathna, Benthara Hettiarachchige Angela Madushani"

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    Differences in Kinetic Variables Between Injured and Uninjured Rearfoot Runners: A Hierarchical Cluster Analysis
    (2022-09) Senevirathna, Benthara Hettiarachchige Angela Madushani; Ferber, Reed; Edwards, W. Brent; Jordan, Maththew; Manske, Sarah
    Running is a popular form of physical activity with a surprisingly high incidence of running-related injuries. While the relationship between running related injuries and ground reaction forces has been investigated, a limitation of previous research is that the heterogeneity of movement patterns within a control group creates confounding factors between variables. A potential solution is to use unsupervised cluster-based analyses to group individuals with similar ground reaction force features and thus investigate differences between identified clusters. Thus, the aim of this study was to investigate whether homogenous clusters exist within a large cohort of injured and healthy runners. The results show that two homogeneous clusters were identified using hierarchical cluster analysis and no significant differences in demographic variables were observed, nor were the proportion of injured and healthy runners between the two clusters. Thus, while there appears to be evidence for two distinct homogeneous kinetic clusters within our large sample of injured and healthy runners, there is no association between these kinetic clusters and running-related injuries.