Runners who encounter visual and auditory(听觉的) distractions(分心) may be more likely to suffer leg injuries, according to a research by the Association of Academic Physiatrists in Las Vegas. Runners often seek distractions from the task at hand. Whether it is music, texting, daydreaming, taking in the sights, or propping a book up on the treadmill(跑步机), more often than not a distraction is welcome. But, researchers from the University of Florida have recently discovered that those distractions may lead to injury.
Daniel Herman, MD, PhD, assistant professor at University of Florida, and his team conducted a research on the effect of visual and auditory distractions on 14 runners to determine what effect, if any, these distractions would have on things such as heart rate, how much a runner breathes per minute, how much oxygen is consumed by the body, the speed in which runners apply force to their bodies, and the force the ground applies to the runners’ bodies when they come in contact with it.
The runners were all injury free at the time of the study and ran 31 miles each week. Dr. Herman’s team had each participant run on a treadmill three separate times. The first time was without any distractions. The second time added a visual distraction, during which the runners concentrated on a screen displaying different letters in different colors with the runners having to note when a specific letter-color combination appeared. The third time added an auditory distraction similar to the visual distraction, with the runners having to note when a particular word was spoken by a particular voice.
When compared to running without distractions, the participants had faster application of force to their left and right legs, called loading rate, with auditory and visual distractions. They also experienced an increased amount of force from the ground on both legs, called ground reaction force, with auditory distractions. Finally, the runners tended to breathe heavier and have higher heart rates with visual and auditory distractions than without any distractions at all.
“Running in environments with different distractions may unfavorably affect running performance and injury risk,” explains Dr. Herman. “Sometimes these things cannot be avoided, but you may be able to minimize potentially cumulative(累积的) effects. For example, when running a new route in a noisy environment such as during a destination marathon, you may want to skip listening to something which may require more attention—like a new song playlist.”
Dr. Herman’s team will continue to investigate the potential relationship between distracted running and leg injuries, and any effect this relationship has on different training techniques that use auditory or visual cues.
32. Paragraph 2 tells us the research ______.
A. process B. results C. questions D. reflection
33. Based on the research, runners with auditory distractions tended to ______.
A. breathe heavier and have lower heart rates
B. get an increased amount of ground reaction force
C. apply more force with less oxygen consumption
D. gain a faster speed with slower loading rates
34. What can we infer from the passage?
A. Running with distractions becomes uncommon nowadays.
B. Listening to a new song while running guarantees performance.
C. Runners are more likely to get injured in an environment without distractions.
D. Runners are advised to minimize distractions in a destination marathon.
35. What is probably the next task for Dr. Herman’s team?
A. What determines training techniques.
B. How distractions should be used in training.
C. Why runners use auditory and visual cues.
D. What effective ways can cure leg injuries.