There is a problem with the way that there is a lack of data and information surrounding segmental rolling and truck control with teenage athletes. 

Despite primal rolling being an effective method to determine the way an athlete's body has developed segmentally and the way it interacts and coordinates and muscle times with the other parts of their body.  In modern times, “Rolling is a movement pattern seldom used by physical therapists for assessment and intervention with adult clientele with the normal neurologic function” (Hoogenboom). This is showing that there is not much data and use of segmental rolling to use with both adults and teenage athletes

This problem has negatively impacted teenage athletes because they have been not given a simple movement pattern to test their muscle timing and coordination of their trunk muscles. 

A possible cause of this problem is non-information on how the rolling actually can determine coordination and specification between sports. Perhaps a study which investigates teenage athletes and their segmental rolling ability by an experimental case study could remedy this situation.

This study is important because it is helping recognize a pattern, or correlation between different sports athletes and their trunk control and muscle timing skills. It has already been proven that segmental rolling is a key indicator if muscles are timing in the correct sequence. I am taking this information then applying it to the data I will be obtaining through my study. I am hoping to find a correlation between these two ideas, in order to create a baseline of what sports in general have better coordination and muscle timing than others. This is a ground-work laying research, to which later I hope to correlate the framework data I will collect, to see if there is a way to see if muscle timing has an affect on injury rates. This means the ability to segmentally roll could be directly impactful on an average injury rate per sport, which could help medical professionals treat athletes and create more effective preventative care. 

Carleigh DeLapp 

BLHS Senior 

Email- delapcar001@stu.sumnersd.org 

If you are interested in participating in a study, and you are a student athlete, please contact me at the email listed above

Here are the informed consent forms that are needed for the study

Adult Consent Form 

Minor Consent Form 

I think that athletes who participate in lacrosse will have a higher percentage success rate in ability to segmentally roll, because of the fact that they utilize their core and trunk muscles, as well as both upper and lower body muscles during activity in their sport, meaning they perhaps have a better overall coordination than other sports. 

Two good articles explaining a deeper science aspect of segmental rolling and its affects on muscle timing-https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5675368/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2953329/

I will be using a case study and an experimental research method because it  would allow me to study individuals but also focus on a cause and effect relationship between the sports and rolling ability. 

Grading Rubric for Rolling Ability

Efficient(2), Compensated(1), Unable (0)

(2)-Efficient means the athlete was able to segmental roll completely without problem, using the muscle groups specified for the type of roll. This is important, for if the wrong muscle groups are used, then the roll was not completed correctly, and is an inaccurate representation of the ability of the athlete. If the muscle groups specified are not used correctly, the roll is unable to be analyzed using known information. An athlete was awarded a 2 score if they were smooth in movement, and did not have a break in rolling technique. 

(1)-Compensated means the athlete either used momentum, or non-primary muscles to complete the segmental roll. They were unable to roll the absolute proper way for this test, however the researcher recognized they had the beginnings of a base strength to segmental roll, but was unable to roll according to the guidelines of efficiently rolling. 

(0)- Unable means that the athlete was unable to turn over in any form of a roll. If this was the case, the athlete was graded a 0, and then asked to do the next motion in rolling. The athlete was not given anymore chances because they were graded a 0. 

      In conclusion, this research study was unable to support a general claim to the correlation of an athlete’s sport and segmental rolling ability, due to small sample size; however, valuable information was still discovered. There was no apparent trend in the sports and segmental rolling ability, but this study showed how different types of sports may have differing percentages of ability to efficiently segmentally roll. The hypothesis that there is a correlation between the sport an athlete plays and their segmental rolling ability must be rejected. 

      While this study did not find a correlation between sport played and an athlete’s segmental rolling ability, future studies may be capable of finding a link. In further research, a larger sample size would be needed, as well as a deeper analysis of the sports to see what specific functional or rotational movements are used in play. A larger and varied sample size could allow for a correlation to be identified. 

      The purpose of this study was to investigate the correlation between an athlete’s sport and their segmental rolling ability. Four sports were analyzed, lacrosse, football, fastpitch, and track. These four sports are distinctly different, lacrosse is a cardio sport with trunk rotation being key in passing and shooting; football is short explosive movements with less trunk rotation in play; fastpitch is a short explosive sport with trunk control being the center movement in hitting and throwing; and finally track is linear cardio sport with less trunk movement. 

      Although sample sizes were limited, fastpitch players appeared to have the best ability to segmentally roll on the supine to prone roll, with the highest average percent efficient ability in three out of the four categories. Fastpitch also had at least 66.67% of the participants in the efficient category for each rolling type, across the entire experiment. 

      Lacrosse athletes struggled at the beginning of the experiment, with only 7.14% of lacrosse players being efficient in the right hand led supine to prone roll.These average abilities however did not stay low for long, as when reaching the right leg led supine to prone roll, the average efficant percentage ability was 92.86%. This is a dramatic increase of  85.72% in efficient ability. This percent stayed steady with the left leg led supine to prone roll efficient percentage ability being 92.86% as well.

      In the upper segmental rolls, the football athletes struggled; only 22.22% of the individuals were graded in the efficient ability for the right hand led supine to prone roll, and 27.76% of the athletes in the efficient category for the left hand led supine to prone roll. On the right leg led supine to prone roll 77.23% of the football players were graded in the efficient category; these athletes also had a 83.34% efficient grading for the left leg led supine to prone roll. 

      Track athletes in this study had above a 50% average ability in the efficient grade for each type of rolling across the entire experiment. This was much like the fastpitch athletes, who also had a high percentage of participants in the efficient category through the entire experiment. 

      By averaging the percentages in the ability levels over all the trials, it was found that there is a very slim difference between the ability of males and females to segmentally roll. The average percentage of efficiently rolling athletes for males was 67.86%, while the average percentage of efficiently rolling athletes for females was 68.75%. According to this study, there is only a .89% difference between the efficient ability of females and males to segmentally roll. Because this is a less than 1% difference, no concrete claim can be made as to whether males or females have more efficient rolling ability.