Effects of lightweight wearable resistance on change of direction performance and segment coordination: a case study

In all testing sessions, the participant wore LilaTM ExogenTM (Sportboleh Sdh Bhd, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia) compression vest, shorts, calf sleeves, and forearm sleeves. During WR testing sessions, a combination of 100 and 200 g “teardrop” shaped loads totalling 2.4 kg were attached to the compression garments. In the FT condition, 6 x 200 g loads were attached to the right anterior and posterior trunk in a lateral dominant orientation. This configuration was selected to increase the inertial effects of a leftward change of direction effort, and to manipulate the participant’s centre of mass away from the intended direction of movement (LaFiandra et al. 2003). In the RS condition, loading was randomly varied across 16 possible regions defined by left or right, anterior or posterior, and trunk, thighs, shanks, or forearms. Due to constraints on surface area, maximum loads in a given region were set at 1200 g for a trunk region, 600 g for a thigh region, 300 g for a shank region, and 200 g for a forearm region. A region was selected at random and maximally loaded before the next random selection was made, with load increasing additively until 2.4 kg total was achieved. 200 g loads were used on the trunk and thighs, while 100 g loads were used on the shanks and forearms. WR loads were placed in an alternating orientation on segments. RS condition loading configurations for each COD effort are presented in Supplemental Table 1.