Abstract
Specialist dance floors have been promoted to reduce impact forces and reduce
lower limb injury for dancers. 18 trained female dancers carried out 70
continuous ballet jumps on 4 different surfaces wearing an XSENS suit. Three
specialist dance floors, Floor A (64% force reduction), Floor B
(67% force reduction), Floor C (no data) were compared to Floor D
(vinyl-covered concrete - control). Dependent variables for each analysed jump
(2,3,4, and 67,68,69) were ankle, knee, hip range of movement (ROM); lower and
upper leg angular velocities and pelvis vertical acceleration. No main effects
were reported for dance floor, first and last jump series. Comparison of the
floors against Floor D reported a main effect for the dance floors
(p=0.001), first and last jump series (p=0.001). Between-subject
effects noted that ankle ROM was significantly greater for trials on floor A
(p=0.007) compared to floor D. ROM data significantly decreased between
the first and last jump series whilst vertical pelvis accelerations increased
except for floor A. Within the current study, a foam backed vinyl floor (C)
provided better shock absorption than floors with higher deformation
characteristics (A and B) and none of the specialist dance floors performed
better than vinyl covered concrete (D).
Key words
dance - stiffness - attenuation - sport surfaces - compliant floors
