How can we get more people with long-term health conditions involved in parkrun? A qualitative study evaluating parkrun’s PROVE project

Background People with long-term health conditions face barriers to physical activity and community health interventions despite potential life-changing benefits for self-management of their condition and wellbeing. A weekly mass participation running, walking and volunteering event called parkrun launched a project called PROVE in 2016 to engage people living with long-term health conditions in England. Over the 3 year project, parkrun appointed volunteer Outreach Ambassadors with a specialist interest in the health condition they represented whose role was to ensure parkrun was welcoming, supportive and inclusive. This qualitative study aimed to understand the experience of the PROVE project for people with long-term health conditions. Methods Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 15 PROVE Outreach Ambassadors representing 13 different long-term health conditions in England. Interviews were recorded, transcribed verbatim and analysed using thematic analysis. Rigour and transparency were sought in addition to utilising independent researchers to offer alternative interpretations of the data. Results Data analysis resulted in 4 overarching themes and 13 subthemes. Outreach Ambassadors believed that parkrun was already supportive of people with long-term health conditions, but that the PROVE project enabled the support to be delivered in a more structured way across health conditions and locations. Outreach Ambassadors believed that the PROVE project had the potential to create a welcoming, safe space for people with long-term health conditions to participate as walkers, runners or volunteers. Success of the PROVE project was believed to be dependent on being realistic about the potential to bring about change, challenging people’s perceptions of parkrun and engaging with key stakeholders and advocacy groups. Challenges for parkrun were believed to be around communication, demonstrating impact and the project’s dependence on volunteers for delivery. Conclusions This is the first study of its kind to explore the public health potential of parkrun for people with long-term health conditions. parkrun’s PROVE project was regarded to be important for ensuring that people with long-term health conditions can engage in physical activity and volunteering in a safe and supportive environment. The findings have important implications for parkrun, policy makers and physical activity providers looking to deliver inclusive community physical activity opportunities

Application of serious games to sport, health and exercise

Use of interactive entertainment has been exponentially expanded since the last decade. Throughout this 10+ year evolution there has been a concern about turning entertainment properties into serious applications, a.k.a "Serious Games". In this article we present two set of Serious Game applications, an Environment Visualising game which focuses solely on applying serious games to elite Olympic sport and another set of serious games that incorporate an in house developed proprietary input system that can detect most of the human movements which focuses on applying serious games to health and exercise

Measurement of studded shoe–surface interaction metrics during in situ performance analysis

Interaction between studded footwear and performance surfaces plays an important role in sport. Discretising this interaction into quantifiable measurements can help optimise design of outsoles and identify parameters for performance testing in situ. Here, we describe the development and validity of an image-based three-dimensional (3D) measurement system to investigate shoe–surface interactions during locomotion performance in situ by eight skilled footballers. By calculating individual stud positions, results revealed that the 3D kinematic data could be distilled to a number of shoe–surface interaction metrics such as orientation, velocity, translation distance and location of the centre of rotation. Findings show how the measurement system and simple analysis methods can be used to provide informative shoe–surface interaction metrics from in situ performance capture for the footwear communit

Does ethnic density influence community participation in mass participation physical activity events? The case of parkrun in England

Background: parkrun has been successful in encouraging people in England to participate in their weekly 5km running and walking events. However, there is substantial heterogeneity in parkrun participation across different communities in England: after controlling for travel distances, deprived communities have significantly lower participation rates. Methods: This paper expands on previous findings by investigating disparities in parkrun participation by ethnic density. We combined geo-spatial data available through the Office for National Statistics with participation data provided by parkrun, and fitted multivariable Poisson regression models to study the effect of ethnic density on participation rates at the Lower layer Super Output Level. Results: We find that areas with higher ethnic density have lower participation rates. This effect is independent of deprivation. Conclusions: An opportunity exists for parkrun to engage with these communities and reduce potential barriers to participation

Modelling effects of drug testing procedures on performance trends in the shot put

Objectives: The effect of performance enhancing drugs on historic performance records in sport is open to interpretation and needs empirical support. Here we addressed this contentious issue by assessing whether a double sigmoidal model could detect decrements in sporting performance attributed to introduction of drug testing protocols. Methods: Distances thrown by the top 25 male and female shot putters since the end of the 19th century were modelled using a double sigmoid. Results: First-phase peak acceleration in the men’s and women’s shot put was reached in 1981 and 1986 respectively coinciding with advent of systematic doping programs. Shot put performance of men and women underwent a second-phase decline of 5.3 m and 8.9 m, in 1991 and 1994, respectively. Performance decrements in women’s shot put were nearly double that for men, but much of this difference resulted from the reduced mass of their shot. Controlling for changes in mass, women’s shot put performance appears to decline to a greater extent than men’s, based on raw energy calculations. Conclusions: The double sigmoidal model detected a second-phase decline in shot put performances. We attribute this data feature to onset of improved drug testing protocols and a consequential reduction of doping. The assumption is that drug testing programs of shot putters has been successful and reduced the prevalence of drug taking in that sport. The application of a double sigmoidal model to historic performance statistics can be used to detect unknown interventions in analyses of sports performance.</p

Quantification of gravity-induced skin strain across the breast surface

Background Quantification of the magnitude of skin strain in different regions of the breast may help to estimate possible gravity-induced damage whilst also being able to inform the selection of incision locations during breast surgery. The aim of this study was to quantify static skin strain over the breast surface and to estimate the risk of skin damage caused by gravitational loading. Methods Fourteen participants had 21 markers applied to their torso and left breast. The non-gravity breast position was estimated as the mid-point of the breast positions in water and soybean oil (higher and lower density than breast respectively). The static gravity-loaded breast position was also measured. Skin strain was calculated as the percentage extension between adjacent breast markers in the gravity and non-gravity loaded conditions. Findings Gravity induced breast deformation caused peak strains ranging from 14 to 75% across participants, with potentially damaging skin strain (>60%) in one participant and skin strains above 30% (skin resistance zone) in a further four participants. These peak strain values all occurred in the longitudinal direction in the upper region of the breast skin. In the latitudinal direction, smaller-breasted participants experienced greater strain on the outer (lateral) breast regions and less strain on the inner (medial) breast regions, a trend which was reversed in the larger breasted participants (above size 34D). Interpretation To reduce tension on surgical incisions it is suggested that preference should be given to medial latitudinal locations for smaller breasted women and lateral latitudinal locations for larger breasted women

Recommendations for measuring tennis racket parameters

Tennis rackets have advanced significantly since the invention of the game in 1874, including innovations in both shape and materials. Advances in these design parameters have implications for racket performance, especially swing speed. This study tested one hundred rackets, spanning brands and eras, using simple, portable instruments in order to pilot protocols and make recommendations for streamlining testing procedures for tennis rackets. A wide range of properties were measured and documented for each racket. We suggest that since Transverse and Lateral Moment of Inertia are well correlated, measuring both is not necessary when processing a large number of rackets. In addition, it is also possible to predict the Transverse Moment of Inertia well from models that use simple dimension and mass measurements, which may be preferable in larger studies. Exploring the use of more complex modelling will allow us to better understand the impact of tennis racket design on performance in the future

Recommendations for estimating the moments of inertia of a tennis racket

Tennis racket properties are of interest to sports engineers and designers as it allows them to evaluate performance, review trends and compare designs. This study explored mathematical models that correlated to the mass moments of inertia of a tennis racket, both about an axis through the butt and about the longitudinal axis, using its dimensions, mass and centre of mass location. The models were tested on 416 rackets, dating from 1874 to 2017. Results showed that moments of inertia about the butt and longitudinal axis can be estimated to within − 4 to 5% and − 11 to 12% of measured values, respectively, using the proposed models on original rackets. When rackets were customised, with 30 g of additional mass, moment of inertia about the butt could be estimated within 6%, but the model for moment of inertia about the longitudinal axis was less accurate (largest error at 25%). A Stepwise Linear Regression model indicated that racket mass and then centre of mass location had the largest effect on moment of inertia about the handle, with head width having the largest effect on moment of inertia about the longitudinal axis