Bouncing Breasts: A Credible Area of Scientific Research
wow, there are a few hapless mostly female scientists studying sports bras.
from the NYTIMES
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/0...pagemode=print
August 18, 2010, 12:01 am
Phys Ed: The Right Kind of Sports Bra
By GRETCHEN REYNOLDS
Thomas Northcut/Getty Images
Researchers from the University of Portsmouth in England and other schools recently attached reflective markers to the breasts of a group of female runners and had the women jog along a track while wearing various types of bras or forgoing breast support. The researchers charted the trajectories of the women’s breasts, using infrared cameras. The track was also equipped with a force platform to measure the force of each runner’s foot strikes.
Many women have long wondered whether breast movement, especially a lot of it, can affect running form. This was the first experiment to formally put that question to a practical test. What the researchers found was that breast sway did, in fact, have a significant effect on the women’s running. When the runners were braless, their strides changed; they landed more heavily, with more of the impact force moving through the inside of their feet. This alteration in stride seemed to be related to “significantly higher amounts of breast movement in that direction,” said Jenny White, a doctoral candidate at the University of Portsmouth and the study’s lead author. As the breasts swung from side to side, so, in effect, the researchers hypothesized, did the women’s body weights. The implications of this finding are disquieting. “Higher forces exerted by the foot when running indicate a higher intensity of stress for a runner,” Ms. White said, “which has potential to increase physiological demand.” The extra forces also, over time, can “lead to the development of stress-related injuries.” Jiggle may make running both more difficult and injurious than it needs to be.
For years, scientists (most of them women) studying breast movement during sports have struggled for respect. A 2007 report about the work being done in the field of breast biomechanics at the University of Portsmouth was titled, rather defensively, “Bouncing Breasts: A Credible Area of Scientific Research.” Some people (a k a men) may have considered breasts to be simple things, not requiring such high-tech attention. But a raft of new studies has established, convincingly, that breasts are more mobile and less manageable than most people once believed.
Related
Researchers at the Portsmouth lab, for instance, recently completed a series of experiments that delineate just how breasts move during activity. Instead of merely bouncing up and down, it turns out that breasts arc through a complicated figure-8 pattern when a woman runs or walks. Few sports bras are designed to accommodate breasts’ side-to-side or lateral sway.
more at the link
