Lower Body Symmetry and Running Performance in Elite Jamaican Track and Field Athletes

In a study of degree of lower body symmetry in 73 elite Jamaican track and field athletes we show that both their knees and ankles (but not their feet) are–on average–significantly more symmetrical than those of 116 similarly aged controls from the rural Jamaican countryside. Within the elite athletes, events ranged from the 100 to the 800 m, and knee and ankle asymmetry was lower for those running the 100 m dashes than those running the longer events with turns. Nevertheless, across all events those with more symmetrical knees and ankles (but not feet) had better results compared to international standards. Regression models considering lower body symmetry combined with gender, age and weight explain 27 to 28% of the variation in performance among athletes, with symmetry related to about 5% of this variation. Within 100 m sprinters, the results suggest that those with more symmetrical knees and ankles ran faster. Altogether, our work confirms earlier findings that knee and probably ankle symmetry are positively associated with sprinting performance, while extending these findings to elite athletes.

Citation: Trivers R, Fink B, Russell M, McCarty K, James B, Palestis BG (2014) Lower Body Symmetry and Running Performance in Elite Jamaican Track and Field Athletes. PLoS ONE 9(11):
e113106.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0113106

Editor: Patrizia d'Ettorre, University of Paris 13, France

Received: July 2, 2014; Accepted: October 15, 2014; Published: November 17, 2014

Copyright: © 2014 Trivers et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Data Availability: The authors confirm that all data underlying the findings are fully available without restriction. Data have been deposited to Dryad (http://dx.doi.org/10.5061/dryad.s3630).

Funding: The authors thank the Enhanced Education Foundation, the Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation, the Biosocial Research Foundation, the Center for Human Evolutionary Studies (CHES), and the German Science Foundation (DFG) for financial support. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

Competing interests: Bernhard Fink serves as an academic editor for PLOS ONE. This does not alter the authors’ adherence to PLOS ONE editorial policies and criteria. With regard to the affiliation of coauthor Bruce James: Mr. James has provided the authors with access to the sample of elite athletes of this present study; he has also been involved in the on-site measurement logistics and activities in Kingston. Aside from this, Mr. James had neither a financial interest nor an influence on the outcome of the study results. This does not alter the authors’ adherence to PLOS ONE editorial policies and criteria.

This study examines the relationship between lower body symmetry and running performance in elite Jamaican athletes.