Honors Theses
Date of Award
2017
Document Type
Undergraduate Thesis
Department
Electrical Engineering
First Advisor
Dwight Waddell
Relational Format
Dissertation/Thesis
Abstract
Golf performance is greatly impacted by balance ability, specifically during a golfer's swinging and putting motion. Previous studies have found that certain shoe characteristics can affect balance; however, no such study has been conducted for golf shoes. This study's objective was to compare balance scores between three different golf shoe styles and determine which style or characteristics serve golfers best in improving balance under quiet standing conditions over time. Twelve adults (age: 23.4 ± 2.2 years; height: 181.5 ± 9.0 cm; mass: 95.8 ± 18.6 kg) participated in this study. Each participant made four visits, one for each footwear condition: barefoot, tennis shoe style, dress shoe style, or minimalist shoe style. The participants walked continuously on artificial turf for four hours and completed the Sensory Organizational Test (SOT) on the NeuroCom Equitest System at every hour mark to assess static balance. The SOT utilizes four testing conditions: eyes open (EO), eyes closed (EC), eyes open sway referenced vision (EOSRV), and eyes open sway referenced platform (EOSRP). From the SOT scores, anterior-posterior (AP) and medial-lateral (ML) sway root mean square (RMS) and AP/ML sway velocity (VEL) were calculated. The results were analyzed using a 4x5 repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA), crossing the four footwear conditions with the five SOT times (0, 60, 120, 180, and 240 minutes). If footwear or time main effects were found, a post hoc pairwise comparison using a Bonferroni correction was completed. It was discovered that static balance began to decrease after two hours, and the barefoot condition scored better than the three golf shoes. At the three-hour mark, the three shoe conditions scored superior to the barefoot condition, but no significant differences in balance performance were found between the three golf shoe styles. This indicates that of the three golf shoes, none would be advantageous or detrimental compared to one another for balance performance.
Recommended Citation
Colbert, Jordan, "The Effect of Golf Shoe Characteristics on Static Balance Over an Extended Duration" (2017). Honors Theses. 478.
https://egrove.olemiss.edu/hon_thesis/478
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