Plantar Pressure Differences between Male Footballers and Sedentary Elders

In our study that we aimed to see the differences between footballers’ plantar pressure distribution and sedentary individuals’ in total 31 males [(FG)n=19; age=20.66±1.31 years; body length=178.7±4.64 cm; body weight=75,3±6.1kg), 12 sedentary volunteers (n=12; age= 21.05±2.3 years; body length=177.5±4.8cm; body weight=73.55±8.69 kg)] participated. Right, and left foot dynamic plantar pressures were obtained at 100Hz sample speed with the method of 5 steps dynamic walking. The foot was separated into masks by being divided into 14 different pieces. “MH1: 1. Metatarsal head, MH2: 2. Metatarsal head, MH3: 3. Metatarsal head, MH4: 4. Metatarsal head, MH5: 5. metatarsal head, big toe, 2nd toe, 3rd 4th 5th toes, forefoot, mid foot, hind foot and total foot”. Peak pressure (PP – kPa), maximal force (MFN), contact area (CA - cm2), contact time (CT– ms) Maximal force normalized to body weight (MFNBW) values were calculated for total foot. Whether there are significant differences between the groups were tested with independent sample t-tests by using SPSS 20.0 software. It is seen that statistically significant differences between football and sedentary groups are in the parameters of MH1 left foot peak pressure (FG:177,8947±76,87; SG:270,9091±161,83), MH4 mean pressure right foot (FG:113,1444±27,75; SG:88,8058±37,41), MH5 max force right foot (FG:42,3667±10,33; SG:29,9917±12,94) and MH5 mean pressure right foot (FG: 66,5156±18,85; SG:46,94±19,36). It might be reached as a result that the main reason of differences in plantar pressure distribution emerged between FG and SG groups is the intense workout and these pieces’ being used much.