Bouncing Breasts: A Credible Area of Scientific Research

[Biciclista]

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

[zoom-zoom]

Post-kid I was a 34DDD. I did not run...or do much of anything. They got in the way and were cumbersome. I would have had to wear 2 sports bras to even think about running...hell no.

Post-reduction I am a 34D (losing weight is gradually moving me into a 32D. Yay, neither of my favorite sports bras come in that size ). They are still cumbersome and I have often wondered what effect they have on my gait. That study really doesn't surprise me. There's a reason we don't see elite females who are leans, but with big busts (and these women do exist and not just from surgical enhancement...my boobs are the first place I gain and last place I lose).

[Biciclista]

it's hard to not think of our ancestors (100,000 years ago) and how those women coped. I guess staying really skinny helped.

[Zen]

"Many women have long wondered whether breast movement, especially a lot of it, can affect running form"

This thought has never once crossed my mind.

[ny biker]

"Many women have long wondered whether breast movement, especially a lot of it, can affect running form"

This thought has never once crossed my mind.

I have never had to wonder because it has never been an issue.

[zoom-zoom]

it's hard to not think of our ancestors (100,000 years ago) and how those women coped. I guess staying really skinny helped.

Yeah, but I was 140#s at the time of my reduction and was a 34DDD. I was not really overweight, but I still had huge boobs. Losing weight has always been a matter of smaller band proportionate to my cup size. So I could have had 20% bodyfat or less and still been a DDD...I just would have been a 30DDD. Boobs aren't just fat. Mine have always been very dense and cystic.

I think our ancestors didn't do as much running as they did walking. Even modern day hunter/gatherer societies don't outRUN their prey, they injure the prey, then outWALK them. And the guys have always been portrayed as the hunters/runners while the women stayed closer to home with the kids and preparation of what the guys brought home and harvest of veggies and stuff.

[zoom-zoom]

I should add...anyone who has seen photos or videos of modern-day women in regions where bras are not the norm--these girls do NOT have perky boobs. Their poor Cooper's ligaments are pretty much shot all to hell.

[OakLeaf]

I have never had to wonder because it has never been an issue.

I'm small-breasted but it's a definite issue for me. If I don't smash 'em down to nothing, they'll throw my shoulders all over the place.

[KnottedYet]

"Many women have long wondered whether breast movement, especially a lot of it, can affect running form"

This thought has never once crossed my mind.

I don't wonder, I *know* it affects my running form!
36DD... and when they are flopping around untethered, everything alters.

[Zen]

This gives me a mental image of a woman running in a zig-zag line.
LOOK OUT! UNCONTROLLED BOOBAGE!

[OakLeaf]

Oh, now you've put the execution scene from Monty Python's Meaning of Life into my head.

I can just about see those women's shoulders flopping all over the place, and their spines weighting and unweighting. Seriously ...

[GLC1968]

Of course breast movement affects stride! I remember as a teen (a 34B teen, mind you) running down the stairs in the morning (braless) and needing to grab my breasts and hold them to my chest to keep them from throwing me off balance!

I take little to no notice of them with a bra on...but bras are a relatively modern enhancement.

I'd be curious to see if running barefoot would change the results of the above study. They've already shown that humans strike the ground harder with shoes on than they do barefoot. So if women ran without shoes, would the breast movement be decreased as the feet and legs did more to absorb the impact as they should?

[zoom-zoom]

I'd be curious to see if running barefoot would change the results of the above study. They've already shown that humans strike the ground harder with shoes on than they do barefoot. So if women ran without shoes, would the breast movement be decreased as the feet and legs did more to absorb the impact as they should?

When I run around barefoot in the house I still gotta hold the girls.

[GLC1968]

When I run around barefoot in the house I still gotta hold the girls.

Well yeah...but your girls aren't exactly typical though!

Actually, I wonder - is there an 'average' natural breast size?

[shootingstar]

Actually, I wonder - is there an 'average' natural breast size?

"Average" must have changed over the past few decades since (to me), more women look bigger in overall body shape..across all ethnicities.
I had no idea about problems on running gait form if a woman was extra-endowed. I bet women who have breast implants, yet want to stay fit and trim all-over by exercising, don't even think of these "problems" prior to surgery.

Not surprising that the world of sports medicine research this wouldn't be taken seriously by the study researchers' male colleagues. I'm just guessing, but unless guys personally know women who have had: breast cancer (scare) or who experience back pain/posture problems if woman is busty, many guys still wouldn't truly understand/be sensitive to breast-related problems at all.