Running research unveils the secrets of Jamaica’s sprinting success

Northumbria experts have travelled to the Caribbean to lead a project looking at why elite Jamaican sprinters are so successful.

Northumbria is ranked in the top 30 in the UK for excellence in sport and exercise science research and academics have recently been investigating just how the small nation – which has produced some of the world’s fastest athletes, including recordbreaker Usain Bolt – is so exceptional at sprinting.

Working with researchers from Germany and New York, Kris McCarty, a research fellow in the department of Psychology, and Mark Russell, a senior lecturer in Sport, Exercise and Rehabilitation measured the knees of more than 70 elite Jamaican athletes including Shelly Ann Fraser-Pryce, who holds two Olympic gold medals in the 100-metre sprint, and Nesta Carter, the man with the fifth-fastest 100-metre record.

For comparison, they measured the knees of 116 non-sprinters who were the same age and sex, and similar in size and weight and found that the sprinters’ knees were much more symmetrical than those of the non-sprinters.

Thirty sprinters specialising in the 100-metre race, which does not require them to turn corners, were found to have the most symmetrical knees of all. This means that the symmetry of the knees and the ankles impacts on a person’s running speed.

Kris explained: “We specifically wanted to look into the success of Jamaican elite sprinters – the best of the best – because the country has so many record holders for sprint events. We flew to Jamaica where we took measurements from an elite track and field team in Kingston, as well as from a large sample of everyday Jamaicans.

“The findings show us there is a relationship between knee symmetry and running speed, although it is not known at this stage if the sprinters are great because their knees are symmetrical, or if their knees are symmetrical because of the time spent practicing and training.” northumbria.ac.uk/rehab

Although scientists can already look at the symmetry of the knees in childhood to predict how fast a non-trained person will run when they are older, this is the first time that any research has isolated a variable that predicts sprinting speed in current athletes.

Scan this QR code for more information on the work of Northumbria’s department of Sport, Exercise and Rehabilitation.