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The effect of running velocity on footstrike angle - a curve-clustering approach

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journal contribution
posted on 2015-02-09, 16:07 authored by Steph ForresterSteph Forrester, J. Townend
Despite a large number of studies that have considered footstrike pattern, relatively little is known about how runners alter their footstrike pattern with running velocity. The purpose of this study was to determine how footstrike pattern, defined by footstrike angle (FSA), is affected by running velocity in recreational athletes. One hundred and two recreational athletes ran on a treadmill at up to ten set velocities ranging from 2.2–6.1 m s−1. Footstrike angle (positive rearfoot strike, negative forefoot strike), as well as stride frequency, normalised stride length, ground contact time and duty factor, were obtained from sagittal plane high speed video captured at 240 Hz. A probabilistic curve-clustering method was applied to the FSA data of all participants. The curve-clustering analysis identified three distinct and approximately equally sized groups of behaviour: (1) small/negative FSA throughout; (2) large positive FSA at low velocities (≤4 m s−1) transitioning to a smaller FSA at higher velocities (≥5 m s−1); (3) large positive FSA throughout. As expected, stride frequency was higher, while normalised stride length, ground contact time and duty factor were all lower for Cluster 1 compared to Cluster 3 across all velocities; Cluster 2 typically displayed intermediate values. These three clusters of FSA – velocity behaviour, and in particular the two differing trends observed in runners with a large positive FSAs at lower velocities, can provide a novel and relevant means of grouping athletes for further assessment of their running biomechanics.

History

School

  • Mechanical, Electrical and Manufacturing Engineering

Published in

GAIT & POSTURE

Volume

41

Issue

1

Pages

26 - 32 (7)

Citation

FORRESTER, S.E. and TOWNEND, J., 2015. The effect of running velocity on footstrike angle - a curve-clustering approach. Gait and Posture, 41 (1), pp. 26 - 32.

Publisher

© Elsevier B.V.

Version

  • AM (Accepted Manuscript)

Publisher statement

This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Publication date

2015

Notes

NOTICE: this is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in Gait and Posture. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in Gait and Posture, vol. 41, issue 1, 2015, DOI: 10.1016/j.gaitpost.2014.08.004

ISSN

0966-6362

Language

  • en