IADMS Madrid 2001   [back to the Category]

Foot support study in Spanish dance using instrumented insoles, footprint, and anthropometry:   [read the french version]

Author :   Concepción Pozo Municio, MD

Thursday 1 November 2001
3:30 – 3:50 pm Room 1

Foot support study in Spanish dance using instrumented insoles, footprint, and anthropometry: Observed changes after a usual training session

Concepción Pozo Municio, MD, Fancisco M. Tobal, Roberto Hernandez Corvo, Escuela Profesional de Especialización en Medicina de la Educación Física y el Deporte de Madrid, Facultad de Medicina, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain

Flamenco and Stylized-Spanish-dance are characterized by “zapateado” (Spanish heel tapping dance), during which dancers strike rhythmically with different parts of feet against the floor. This study determines plantar support in dancers who usually practice “zapateado.”
Materials and Methods: Pre-professional Spanish-dance dancers, 19 women and 5 men, devoting an average of 43.5 ± 10.38% of weekly training to “zapateado” styles. Kinetic study (static and dynamic) using Parotec-SystemR insoles: body center of gravity (CG), foot center of pressure (CP), pattern of progression of CP (PCP), peak pressures (PPs) and pressure-time integrals (PTIs) patterns. Footprint analysis (Hernandez Corvo method) and internal arch height measurement at bottom navicular tuberosity (H) before and after a regular training session.

Results: CG, CP and PCP in both feet are normal. PPs and PTIs prevalence at forefoot (47% of total N/cm2 and 46.5% N·s in static, 39% N/cm2 and 53.5% N·s in dynamic), and heel (38% N/cm2 and 39% N·s in static, 31% N/cm2 and 32% N·s in dynamic). No significant differences (p < 0.01) exist between feet in total N/cm2 and N·s, but by plantar regions. Basal conditions: 23% footprints are normal, 77% cavus feet. H = 3.58 ± 0.5cm. Metatarsal wide (X) 0.11 cm larger in right foot (< 0.05). After exercise: 85% cavus feet, although cavus degree reduces. X increases 0.08cm in left foot (p < 0.05). H falls 6% (p < 0.05). H is not related to footprint classification (r2 = 0.52), and to PPs and PTIs by foot regions (r2 < 0.6).

Discussion: PPs and PTIs suggest a musculoskeletal adaptation that could be caused by the specific and intensive “zapateado” training performed by this group. Both feet, analyzed by plantar regions, have different behavior. After training, feet of trained dancers, tend to reduce cavus degree and H. Left X increases. Understanding of foot biomechanics like a tridimensional system exposed to adaptative changes needs a multiple approach: kinetics, anthropometric, and footprint.