@article{738b86a0be02440eb974a1bea549895a,
title = "A systematic review of the physiological and biomechanical differences between males and females in response to load carriage during walking activities",
abstract = "The purpose of this review was to systematically assess literature on differences between males and females in the physiological and biomechanical responses to load carriage during walking. PubMed, CINAHL, Scopus, Web of Science and the Cochrane library were searched. A total of 4637 records were identified and screened. Thirty-three papers were included in the review. Participant characteristics, load carriage conditions, study protocol, outcome measures and main findings were extracted and qualitatively synthesised. Absolute oxygen uptake and minute ventilation were consistently greater in males but there were limited sex-specific differences when these were expressed relative to physical characteristics. There is limited evidence of sex-specific differences in spatio-temporal variables, ground reaction forces (normalised to body mass) or sagittal plane joint angles with load. However, differences have been found in hip and pelvic motions in the frontal and horizontal planes, which might partly explain an economical advantage for females proposed by some authors.",
keywords = "Load carriage, Sex differences, Walking gait",
author = "Sean Hudson and Martin Barwood and Chris Low and Jodie Wills and Michael Fish",
note = "Funding Information: Studies have generally found no sex-differences for lower-limb joint kinematics when the load is standardised to body mass and carried on the torso (i.e., backpack or weighted vest). There also appear to be no sex-differences for hip and ankle motions when carrying absolute loads, but females do appear to exhibit smaller knee ROM with absolute loads carried using weighted vests (Bode et al., 2021; Loverro et al., 2019). Loverro et al. (2019) did not report knee angles during the swing phase, but they speculated that the smaller knee ROM might be a result of females decreasing their knee extension prior to heel-strike to reduce stress on the knee. This is supported by research showing increased hip and knee flexion in late swing with increased load mass (Middleton et al., 2022; Silder et al., 2013), which is likely to be a preparatory strategy to accommodate heavy load carriage in early stance. Interestingly, Bode et al. (2021) reported similar reductions in knee angle ROM for females when investigating the responses to load carriage in anthropometrically paired males and females (stature and body mass). However, Bode et al. (2021) did not match participants for lean body mass (LBM) (male LBM = 56.6 ± 3.1 kg; female LBM = 46.7 ± 4.9 kg) and an increased lower limb muscle mass in males may have afforded them stronger knee musculature, enabling an increased knee ROM compared to their female counterparts when carrying the same absolute load. As such, it appears that lean body mass and muscular strength might account for differences in load carriage gait mechanics in studies where participants are matched for stature and body mass. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2023",
year = "2024",
month = jan,
doi = "10.1016/j.apergo.2023.104123",
language = "English",
volume = "114",
journal = "Applied Ergonomics",
issn = "0003-6870",
publisher = "Elsevier",
}