Objective: Investigate the influence of sex, strength capacity, and relative load mass on low-back exposure and lower extremity joint power generation in backboard lifting.
Background: Sex and strength have been shown to influence lifting strategy, but without load mass being scaled to strength it is unknown which factor influences low-back exposures, and whether there are interactions with load mass.
Methods: Motion capture and force plate data from 28 participants were collected during backboard lifting at load masses scaled to strength capacity. Differences in normalized peak low-back moment, peak knee-to-hip power magnitude ratio and timing were tested as a function of sex, strength, and load mass.
Results: Stronger participants had lower normalized peak low-back moments (average 32% change from low-capacity across all load masses), with no significant sex effect (p = 0.582). As load mass increased, normalized peak low-back moment, peak knee-to-hip power magnitude and synchronicity decreased.
Conclusion: Training to both increase strength capacity and hip-joint power generation may be a strategy to reduce low-back exposure in backboard lifting.
Keywords: Energetics; Paramedics; Strength capacity.
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