Revised Assignment Two
-
Upload
yunlong-liu -
Category
Documents
-
view
214 -
download
0
Transcript of Revised Assignment Two
The design and technology of basketball shoes improve
basketball players’ performance on the court.
Yunlong Liu
University of North Carolina at Charlotte
Introduction:
This paper explores basketball shoes’ design and technology and how it improves
basketball players performance on the court. Basketball is one of the most popular
sports at any age. No matter where you go, basketball is a trend. Which is why a lot of
manufacturers take advantage to this popularity and as a result, there are now
hundreds and even thousands of basketball shoes designs and styles from different
famous brands all over the world. A lot people have been wondering if basketball
shoes preferences matters? Would it affect the player’s performance on his or her
game? Well basically the answer is definitely a yes! Mainly because unlike any other
sport, shoes is the only equipment a basketball player has during the game, which is
why the right choice of shoes is somewhat considered as a big deal to any player,
even NBA players, as we all know has their own preferred comfort foot wears.
Basketball shoes can give any player the confidence to run, jump and move, making
his performance even better than the usual, however nothing can change the fact that
none of the many basketball shoes will make you a best player, no matter how much
you spend for it. Serious training and skill practice are always the solution to a poor
performance.
Basketball shoes differ in many ways, like for such, on its design, size, cushioning,
price, brand, traction and its structure. For instance,
Support: the need of ankle support depends on the player, if you are prone of
getting injuries or twisted ankle, then you better go for a shoe that can give you
what you need. For a sufficient ankle support, the high-cut or mid-cut styled
basketball shoes are ideal for you.
Cushioning: shoes with right cushioning are the best choice for comfort.
Therefore, look for footwear with great cushioning that will give you enough time
to practice, train and play the game without hurting your foot.
Traction: Shoes with great grip support will help you get rid of slipping, which
commonly leads to injuries. For a safer game play, try to search for shoes with
solid traction support.
As a big fan of basketball game and sneaker, I have bought a lot of shoes and when I
wear them, I really can not feel the big differences between normal sneaker or the
high technology sneaker. So I did this research and try to figure out how the
basketball shoes improve our performance on the court. I will talk about it in different
ways.
Literature review:
Basketball shoes as a whole:
One of the biggest reasons that attract people to buy basketball shoes is letting you
jumping higher. Certain basketball shoe manufacturers claim that their shoes allow a
player to jump 3 1/2 inches higher than the player can jump without the special shoes.
However, according to the research of effects of various parameters of basketball
shoes on vertical jumping performance: A case study, jump higher does not entirely
upon the shoes. The best performance was always obtained in barefoot condition.
Concerning SJ( squat jumps )performance decreased with basketball shoes associated
to the parameter “heavy” mainly. Concerning CMJ90(countermovement jumps, with
an intermediate knee flexion position of 90° ), the parameters “heavy” and “high”
were the most related to the decrease of performance. Parameters “mass”, “flexibility”
and “height” had the greatest influence when they were associated by pair. Moreover,
the condition “heavy + high” was pointed out whatever the kind of jump. (Blache, Y.,
A. Beguin, and K. Monteil. 2011).
This result clearly tell us that the basketball can make you jump higher is not true.
People with barefoot condition can jump the highest that you can jump. However, this
research still give us lots of information about the parameters that influences our jump
ability.
Shoe upper:
The term "upper" refers to the part or parts of a shoe that cover the toes, the top of the
foot, the sides of the foot, and the back of the heel -- it is attached to the outsole of a
shoe. Depending on the style of the shoe, the upper of a shoe can be cut from a single
piece, or can be comprised of many pieces stitched together. Parts of a shoe's upper
can include the vamp, the back, the tongue, the quarter, and the lining. Uppers can be
made from a variety of materials, with the most popular being leather, satin, suede,
and canvas. During the early period of basketball game, players just wore normal
sport shoes that were made of canvas or cloth. Those kinds of materials were easily
deformed and it can not give players’ both foot and ankle enough support, so it easily
cause injury. During 1970s, leather, nylon and cotton started to make shoe upper. The
most significant characteristics of basketball shoes of this period was firm. Firm shoes
provided perfect protection for players but it was heavy and poor permeability.
As 21st century was coming, more light and strong material were produced and used
on basketball shoes like flywires, foamposite
and flyknits.
The height of shoes’ upper also had different styles like low, mid and high, which
provided more choices for different position of players. Basketball footwear
requirements are dependent on playing position. (1) guards require speed and agility,
(2) centers require strength and strong leaping ability, and (3) forward players are
versatile all-rounders. Overall, ankle stability was rated the most important shoe
characteristic and mid-cut uppers were favored by the majority of players. Shoe
preferences differed only marginally between playing positions: guards put more
emphasis on low-weight and more flexible shoes whereas center players prefer shoes
with high stability and injury protection. Accordingly, center player favored high-cut
uppers. (Torsten Brauner, Marc Zwinzscher and Thorsten Sterzing. 2012). The reason
that different positions choose different upper because of their different advantages.
Low-cut shoes are the lightest and give you ankle enough free space to move. Mid-cut
shoes are the popular ones among players. It does provide ankle support. High-cut
shoes are heavy but it gives the ankle enough protection. In the shock attenuation test,
the use of high-support shoes resulted in higher forefoot impact forces and higher
shock transmission to the head, but showed lower shock transmission to the tibia. The
use of high support shoes resulted in lower ranges of eversion and higher ranges of
inversion of the ankle on landing. In the motor performance tests, the high-support
shoes reduced the height jumped and increased the time to complete the running
course relative to the low-support shoes. We conclude that increased ankle support
reduces ankle eversion range but increases shock transmission, and reduces both
jumping and running performance. (Brizuela, G., S. Llana, R. Ferrandis, and A. C.
Garcia-Belenguer. 1997). So the high upper basketball shoes do increase ankle
protection and support but it increase the weight which also influence jumping and
running performance.
Midsole:
The midsole is the layer in between the
outsole and the insole, typically there for shock absorption. Some types of shoes, like
running shoes, have additional material for shock absorption, usually beneath the heel
of the foot, where one puts the most pressure down. Most of basketball players are tall
and big, so midsole cushioning can decrease the impact on their foot during jumping
or running. The first basketball shoes’ midsole was made by rubber which can provide
some cushion but not enough. Converse all-star was a good example for this period of
basketball shoes. Then more new materials were used in midsole with 21st century
coming like EVA, phylon and lunarlon. All of those kinds of material were soft and
elastic which can give more feedback force and quick speed and reaction. With more
tech used in basketball shoes, another important opinion was created- air cushioning.
The first air cushioning was created by Nike. Nike Air is pressurized air inside a
tough, yet flexible bag. The Air Sole units are located in the midsole beneath the heel,
forefoot or in both areas. The Air Sole units in Nike Air shoes compress to reduce the
force of impact. The Air Soles then immediately recover to original shape and
volume, ready for the next impact. Nike air have different branches such as, air sole,
air max, air shox and zoom air. Each of them had their special characteristic and you
can choice you favorite by you personal circumstance. To test the effect on basketball
shoes cushion, several research were found that the cloth sport shoes has 2.55 BW of
impact force but basketball shoes only has 2.37 BW of impact force.(Fong, Daniel
Tik-Pui, Hong Youlian, and Li Jing Xian. 2007. ) Second research show that A
combination of landing in shoes of 3 midsole densities (soft, normal, hard) from each
of 3 landing potential energy(PE) levels( low, median, high). Ground reaction forces
(GRF), acceleration (ACC) of the tibia and forehead, and sagittal kinematic data were
sampled simultaneously. The GRF results showed that the forefoot peak GRF in the
normal and hard midsoles was significantly greater than the soft midsole at the low
and median PEs. Rearfoot peak GRF was significantly greater for the hard midsole
than for the soft and normal midsoles at the median and high PEs, respectively.
(Songning, Zhang, Kurt Clowers, Charles Kohstall, and Yu Yeon-Joo. 2005). The
design and technology of midsole can really decrease the impact on foot and reduce
the possibility of injuries.
Outsole:
The outsole is the layer in direct contact
with the ground. Dress shoes often have leather or resin rubber outsoles; casual or
work-oriented shoes have outsoles made of natural rubber or a synthetic material like
polyurethane. The outsole may comprise a single piece, or may be an assembly of
separate pieces, often of different materials. On some shoes, the heel of the sole has a
rubber plate for durability and traction, while the front is leather for style. Specialized
shoes will often have modifications on this design: athletic or so called cleated shoes
like soccer, rugby, baseball and golf shoes have spikes embedded in the outsole to
improve traction. Now more and more outsole used bionics to find the foot pressure
image to design the outsole which can give players more traction. The research show
that Three test playing surfaces: clean hardwood, dusty hardwood, and clean artificial
flooring, each approximately 18 in. The results indicated that in basketball the
magnitude of the resistance forces and torque are influenced by the outsole material
and outsole hardness of the shoes, the playing surface and player weights.(Donald
Rheinstein, Chauncey A. Morehouse, Beniamin W. Niebel.) Another research show
that a stipple pattern is a generally added to a basketball shoe outsole for cosmetic
reasons, however, it appears that if the stipples are lager and both in translation as
well as in rotation, by varying that size, location, and orientation of the stipple pattern
on the outsole, the ability to reduce free moments of rotation may be regulated to
some extent.(Gordan, Valiant) The outsole pattern design and technology can increase
traction force.
Entering the conversation:
After a long time searching, I finally found enough source that I could use in my
paper. I have to say that there are not many resources about basketball shoes’ design
and technology. Also some of them are out of style which are no longer reasonable.
However, the most confused thing is some researches show different results even
though they research the exactly same topic. For example, if you go back to the shoe
upper section, you can find that one of the conclusion is high-top shoes can increase
ankle support. But another research of the effect of high-top and low-top shoes on
ankle inversion kinematics and muscle activation in landing on a tilted surface show
that Shoe collar height did not influence the ankle inversion kinematics during landing
on an inverted surface, yielding no changes in maximum ankle inversion angle, ankle
inversion ROM, and maximum ankle inversion angular velocity. Therefore, the initial
hypothesis was rejected as no decreased inversion was found with high-top shoes.
(Weijie Fu, Ying Fang, Yu Liu and Jianfu Hou, 2014). So I don’t know which one is
correct. All researches are also more focus on testing basketball shoes as a whole and
ignore each individual part of basketballs. The reason is that some new designs or
technologies are only use in one or two parts of the whole shoes, if tester only focus
on the overall performance of the basketball shoes, we can not know how each
individuals work and perform.
Also after I conducting this research, I feel the need to correct the meaning of
basketball shoes improve players performance. Basketball shoes can not make you
jump higher or run faster. The significant reason to wear a pair of basketball shoes
when you play on the court is it provide a kind of protection and support. It plays a
helpful role in assisting players on the court. Players can focus on the game instead of
worrying about get hurt, so in this sense, it improves players performance.
Another important thing that I find is there are no big different performance in
basketball shoes between now and 20 years before. That makes me question why shoe
companies still advertise about the new design and technologies. Combining this
research with my assignment one of sneaker world, I find that the changing of the
definition of basketball shoes causes this problem. Basketball shoes are no longer a
kind of basketball equipment, it becomes a kind of fashion that more and more people
get familiar with. You can see many singers or actors wear basketball shoes singing
and dancing. That’s why shoe companies keep releasing new beautiful basketball
shoes with new technology and design to satisfy the need of the masses.
So what/conclusion:
The reason that I write this paper is to explore how the design and technology of
basketball shoes improve players performance on the court. As a result, different shoe
uppers give you different ankle or foot support when you play. You can choose what
you like based on the position that you play. Midsole cushioning can decrease the
impact on players foot, so it can reduce the possibilities of injuries. Outsole design
can increase the traction force. This paper also can give people a introduction about
which kinds of basketball shoes that are fit for you circumstance. In a word,
basketball shoes are more likely playing a helpful role, it provides more protections
and supports than improves our physical abilities on the court.
References
Brizuela, G., S. Llana, R. Ferrandis, and A. C. Garcia-Belenguer. 1997. "The
influence of basketball shoes with increased ankle support on shock attenuation and
performance in running and jumping." Journal Of Sports Sciences 15, no. 5: 505-515.
SPORTDiscus with Full Text, EBSCOhost (accessed February 25, 2014).
Wing Kai Lam , Thorsten Sterzing & Jason Tak-Man Cheung (2011) “Reliability of a
basketball specific testing protocol for footwear fit and comfort perception.” Footwear
Science, (accessed February 25, 2014).
Fong, Daniel Tik-Pui, Hong Youlian, and Li Jing Xian. 2007. "Cushioning and lateral
stability functions of cloth sport shoes." Sports Biomechanics 6, no. 3: 407-417.
SPORTDiscus with Full Text, EBSCOhost (accessed February 25, 2014).
Torsten Brauner, Marc Zwinzscher and Thorsten Sterzing. 2012. “Basketball footwear
requirements are dependent on playing position.” Footwear Science, (accessed
February 25, 2014).
Torsten Brauner, Marc Zwinzscher and Thorsten Sterzing. 2012. “Basketball shoes:
what players wear and what they demand.” Footwear Science, (accessed February 25,
2014).
Nestor W. Sherman & Mike Daniela , 2002. “Effects of High-Top and Low-Top
Shoes on Ankle Inversion.”Journal of Physical Education, Recreation & Dance,
(accessed February 25, 2014).
Songning, Zhang, Kurt Clowers, Charles Kohstall, and Yu Yeon-Joo. 2005. "Effects
of Various Midsole Densities of Basketball Shoes on Impact Attenuation During
Landing Activities." Journal Of Applied Biomechanics 21, no. 1: 3-17. SPORTDiscus
with Full Text, EBSCOhost (accessed February 28, 2014).
Gordan, Valiant. NIKE SPORT Reaearch Laboratory, "The effect of outsole pattern
on basketball shoe traction." Accessed February 28, 2014. https://ojs.ub.uni-
konstanz.de/cpa/article/viewFile/1497/1347.
DONALD RHEINSTEIN, CHAUNCEY A. MOREHOUSE, BENIAMIN W.
NIEBEL. Sports Research Institute The Pennsylvania State University University
Park, Pennsylvania, "Effects 0n traction of outsole composition and hardnesses of
basketball shoes and three types of playing surfaces." Accessed February 28, 2014.
http://ebookbrowsee.net/effects-on-traction-of-outsole-composition-and-hardness-of-
basketball-shoes-and-three-types-of-playing-surfaces-pdf-d458823106.
Blache, Y., A. Beguin, and K. Monteil. 2011. "Effects of various parameters of
basketball shoes on vertical jumping performance: A case study". Science & Sports.
26 (1): 48-50.