Boston Celtics middle Robert Williams III falls to the court docket after struggling a toe harm throughout a playoff recreation in May 2021. Maddie Malhotra/Getty Images
The NBA playoffs present a stage for a number of the largest and tallest athletes on the earth. With a mean peak of 6 ft, 7 inches and a mean weight of 225 kilos, gamers have a whole lot of pores and skin, bone and muscle to assist.
That’s why their ft play such an outsize function – actually and figuratively.
As a bodily therapist and researcher who works intently with NBA athletes, I do know simply how tough it’s to keep up the well being of gamers who’re on the upper finish of the foot-size spectrum.
And so whereas followers eagerly anticipate eye-popping dunks and artful assists, I’ll be keeping track of the footwork of gamers like Kevin Durant, Joel Embiid and Lebron James, every of whom has had challenges conserving their ft wholesome.
The significance of a powerful basis
NBA gamers’ our bodies take a beating.
They bounce and are available crashing right down to the court docket as much as 70 instances per recreation, with facilities – sometimes the tallest gamers on the court docket – normally leaping probably the most.
When gamers land, the influence on the bottom will be as excessive as 4 to 6 instances their physique weight. The common participant additionally adjustments path each two to 3 seconds, requiring stopping, turning and accelerating. Together, the jumps, twists, dekes and sprints put immense stress on gamers’ foot, ankle and knee joints.
Like a tall constructing, basketball gamers want a stable basis to assist their huge our bodies and face up to the facility that’s generated by all of this motion.
This is the place the ft are available in. The common shoe dimension of NBA gamers is near a U.S. dimension 15. NBA Hall-of-Famers Shaquille O’Neal and Bob Lanier famously wore dimension 22 footwear. Among present gamers, Kevin Durant (18), Andre Drummond (19), Brook and Robin Lopez (20), Karl Anthony Towns (20) and Tacko Fall (22) lead the pack. The typical shoe dimension for an American grownup male is 10.5.
Shaquille O’Neal’s huge ft are the stuff of legend.
Josh Brasted/Getty Images
Having large ft means having large bones that act as levers to create forces wanted for athletic maneuvers. The foot’s 26 bones are intricately linked along with a collection of 33 joints and certain collectively by comfortable tissues like muscle groups, tendons and ligaments. The large toe, the arch of the midfoot and the ankle are the gears that facilitate movement.
The comfortable tissue that connects these joints acts like a spring. Energy should be transferred from one joint to the opposite in a leverlike system that permits athletes to propel themselves ahead when working and leaping. Likewise, these joints have to work collectively to soak up the shock of touchdown, slowing down or altering instructions.
If this construction is just not sound, the complete course of can break down.
What goes up should come down
According to sports activities medication specialist Mark C. Drakos, 62% of accidents within the NBA happen under the waist, with foot and ankle accidents accounting for over 22% of them. Ankle accidents are the commonest: A participant has a 25.8% likelihood of incurring one over the course of a season.
Stress fractures, whereas much less frequent, will be notably debilitating, lingering for weeks or months. The most typical bones within the ft and decrease leg to expertise stress fractures are the navicular, talus, tibia and fibula.
Orthopedic surgeon Moin Kahn carried out a case examine and located that solely 30% of the athletes who incurred a stress fracture from 2005 to 2015 have been in a position to return to their earlier degree of play a yr after their harm.
Having large ft doesn’t imply that an NBA athlete is destined to have an harm. But many large males have had their struggles. This checklist contains former gamers Bill Walton, Arvydas Sabonis, Yao Ming and Greg Oden, all of whom wore dimension 19 footwear.
Standing at 7 ft, 3 inches, NBA prospect Victor Wembanyama has already had his fair proportion of well being points, together with a fibular stress fracture. He wears a dimension 20.5 shoe.
Getting off on the proper foot
Our analysis workforce has been finding out joint vary of movement, arch mobility, and foot and ankle mechanics in NBA gamers to assist athletes mitigate these harm dangers.
Part of that work entails constructing a database that features the traditional scientific measurements for elite basketball gamers – large toe extension, arch mobility, ankle flexion, hamstring flexibility and hip vary of movement.
Understanding regular bodily dimensions helps bodily therapists and trainers to grasp the danger of harm based mostly on vulnerabilities in a participant’s bodily make-up.
For instance, the typical vary of the large toe’s extension for the overall inhabitants is 60 levels. However, our analysis exhibits that the typical NBA entrance court docket participant has movement that’s about 40 levels. This implies that the standard NBA participant has ft and ankles which are stiffer than the typical particular person’s.
Kevin Durant tears his Achilles tendon throughout Game 5 of the 2019 NBA Finals.
While this stiffness will be advantageous and work like a coiled spring that helps a basketball participant run and bounce, bodily therapists should always work on these muscle groups to loosen them up. That’s as a result of an excessive amount of stiffness may cause bone accidents.
Understanding what is going on throughout the warmth of the motion can also be essential.
We discovered that Achilles tendon tears are likely to happen when the ankle bends greater than 48 levels. We suspect that this could occur when gamers’ ankles aren’t stiff sufficient: The tendon can’t adequately face up to the forces it encounters throughout recreation play.
The foot – a fancy community of bones, joints and tissue – is in the end solely as robust as its weakest hyperlink. And the well being of a workforce’s ft can find yourself being the one factor standing between them and a championship.
Philip Anloague doesn’t work for, seek the advice of, personal shares in or obtain funding from any firm or group that might profit from this text, and has disclosed no related affiliations past their educational appointment.
