RELATION BETWEEN UPPER LIMBS STRENGTH AND RUNNING SPEED IN AMPUTEE FOOTBALL PLAYERS: REVIEW

Aldo Muçalliu, Orest Shytaj

Abstract

Amputee football is gaining popularity worldwide among individuals with disabilities. It has differences compared to normal football, such as, number of players in the field, smaller field dimensions and the usage of crutches while running. Despite the differences with normal football, amputee football requires high levels of flexibility, endurance, power, speed, and agility. Running with crutches is divided into 4 stages and within these 4 stages, an amputee player uses crutches 33% of the time, while 67% of the time uses their foot. Hereby, this study aims to show the relationship between strengthening the upper body to increase the speed of running with crutches during the game of amputee football. A rigorous literature research was conducted based on training and sports performance. The considered databases were PubMed, Research Gate and MEDLINE, where the keywords used were “amputation” “football” “strength” “speed” “crutches”. The criteria of the selected studies were the relevance of the article on the selected topic and the time of publication. Studies conducted in this topic conclude that there is a great relation between upper strength and activities performed on amputee football match, such as running. Studies state the usage of latissimus dorsi muscle and shoulder extension movement. This study will be useful to give a clear sighting of the importance of upper limbs training in amputee football players to increase their running speed with crutches.

Pages: 16 - 21