Effects of four days hiking on postural control
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2015-04
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Hiking is a demanding form of exercise that may cause delayed responses of the postural
muscles and a loss of somatosensory information, particularly when repeatedly performed
for several days. These effects may negatively influence the postural control of hikers. There-
fore, the aim of this study was to investigate the effects of a four-day hike on postural control.
Twenty-six adults of both sexes travelled 262 kilometers, stopping for lunch and resting in
the early evening each day. Force platforms were used to collect center of pressure (COP)
data at 100 Hz for 70 seconds before hiking started and immediately after arriving at the rest
station each day. The COP time course data were analyzed according to global stabilometric
descriptors, spectral analysis and structural descriptors using sway density curve (SDC) and
stabilometric diffusion analysis (SDA). Significant increases were found for global variables
in both the anterior-posterior and medial-lateral directions (COP sway area, COP total sway
path, COP mean velocity, COP root mean square value and COP range). In the spectral
analysis, only the 80% power frequency (F80) in the anterior-posterior direction showed a
significant increase, reflecting the increase of the sway frequencies. The SDC revealed a sig-
nificant increase in the mean distance between peaks (MD) and a significant decrease in the
mean peak amplitudes (MP), suggesting that a larger torque amplitude is required for stabili-
zation and that the postural stability is reduced. The SDA revealed a decrease in the long-
term slope (Hl) and increases in the short-term (Ks) and the long-term (Kl) intercepts. We
considered the likelihood that the presence of local and general fatigue, pain and related
neuromuscular adaptations and somatosensory deficits may have contributed to these pos-
tural responses. Together, these results demonstrated that four days of hiking increased
sway frequencies and deteriorated postural control in the standing position.
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VIEIRA, Marcus Fraga et al. Effects of four days hiking on postural control. Plos One, San Francisco, v. 10, n. 4, p. e0123214, Apr. 2015.