During running, ground contact can be initiated in different ways: from heel, mid-foot or fore foot. Human walking predominantly has a clear heel-to-toe roll-off pattern which differentiates our movement from most animals.
A recent study by Mesiquita et al. shows that this speciality of human walking results in an energetic advantage and optimized gait and can be seen as an advantage of the evolution of bipedal posture.
Again, the h/p/cosmos gaitway 3d was utilized to support data collection in this study. As a speciality, the gaitway 3d allows the precise measurement of ground reaction forces (Fx, Fy, Fz) and torques but optionally it also measures the pressure distribution of every footstep. This additional set of data allows to see quality of the roll-off pattern in walking and running.
The sample video shows ground reaction forces from the gaitway 3d that were digitally transferred to the Noraxon MR3 software and synchronized with the pressure distribution data, hence giving a load of insights to the subject’s locomotion.