Footwear Innovation to Improve Safety for Female Turf Sport Players (“FemFITS”)

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

Footwear R&D for football and rugby has been based almost solely on male participants' requirements, resulting in a fundamental lack of specific understanding of female players' needs -- despite women's participation being the fastest growing areas of these sports.For female players, inappropriate footwear has a negative influence both on injury risk (biomechanics) and sustained participation (comfort, safety). This has even been recognised by the Parliamentary Women and Equalities Committee, which highlighted the prevalence of anterior cruciate ligament injuries in professional football players, as well as 82% of female players at top clubs suffering regular discomfort in the boots they wear. This project will coalesce technical innovation with customer insight to create a product line that ensures safe participation in turf-based sports through women's-specific footwear design.Specifically, the design factor most frequently associated with knee and ankle injuries is the level of traction provided by the boot outsole or soleplate, the bottom-most element of the shoe. As all R&D focused on male players, the actual traction requirements of female players are currently unknown.There are no "soft ground" boots designed specifically for female players on the market. Soft ground boots incorporate long metal studs that increase traction during dynamic twisting and turning movements. Whilst important for these movements, higher traction boots designed for men place female players at heightened injury risk.Female-specific factors such as body mass ratios, speed and angles of movement and size of applied forces should influence traction requirements. Soft ground boots must be (re)designed for the specific and growing population of female players.This project will build on Ida Sports' award-winning female (firm ground) footwear, targeting the specific market opportunity of studded soft ground boots. Project partner University of Exeter will leverage their expertise in 3D foot scanning, human movement tracking, force sensors and pressure-measuring insoles.