The effect of sports bra impact level on breast motion

Engineering of Sport 15 - Proceedings from the 15th International Conference on the Engineering of Sport (ISEA 2024)

In recent years there has been much focus on increasing female participation within sport, with statistics suggesting it to be lower than male participation by two million females in the UK. Significant factors in this discrepancy are the physical barriers around body size and shape that influence participation, one of which is relating to the female breast. There is evidence to suggest that it is desirable to control motion of the breast in order to permit physical activity without causing discomfort or damage, but this is not well quantified, and much research has focused on subjective opinions or simplistic measurement. Given the breast is a highly deformable body that is subjected to dynamic loading it is possible that significant information is being missed by this simple approach. Digital image correlation (DIC) offers the opportunity to capture non-contact, high resolution, whole field measurements of shape and deformation of physical objects under loading. It has been developed over many years and finds widespread application across aeronautical or automotive industries as well as in human and sports analyses. DIC offers a convenient and high fidelity means of capturing the full motion of the human torso during physical movement, allowing different movements, subjects or support garments to be objectively analysed. The aim of the research presented was to analyse the influence of three sports bras of different impact levels on motion of the breast using a controlled forward rotation.