An examination of treadmill running familiarisation in barefoot and shod conditions in healthy men

Abstract

Running on a treadmill is an activity that is novel to many people. Thus, a familiarisation period may be required before reliable and valid determinations of biomechanical parameters can be made. The current study investigated the time required for treadmill familiarisation under barefoot and shod running conditions. Twenty-six healthy men, who were inexperienced in treadmill running, were randomly allocated to run barefoot or shod for 20 minutes on a treadmill at a self-selected comfortable pace. Sagittal-plane kinematics for the ankle, knee and hip, and ground reaction force and spatio-temporal data were collected at two-minute intervals. For the barefoot condition, temporal differences were observed in peak hip flexion and peak knee flexion during swing. For the shod condition, temporal differences were observed for peak vertical ground reaction force. No temporal differences were observed after 8 minutes for either condition. Reliability analysis revealed high levels of consistency (ICC > 0.90) across all consecutive time-points for all dependent variables for both conditions after 8 minutes with the exception of maximal initial vertical ground reaction force loading rate. Participants in both barefoot and shod groups were therefore considered familiarised to treadmill running after 8 minutes.

Is Motorized Treadmill Running Biomechanically Comparable to Overground Running? A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Cross-Over Studies

“…Several studies have investigated how much familiarization is required to achieve stable MT running biomechanics within one session. Although estimates vary considerably from 30 s [90] up to 9 min [23,24,91,92], most studies report ~ 8 min [24,91]. However, substantial individual differences have been reported and some individuals may therefore require considerably more or less familiarization [93].…”

“…Although we attempted to explore the causes of the heterogeneity by performing sub-group analysis based on overground surface and meta-regression based on running speed, MT motor power and belt dimensions when sufficient studies were available, other factors that were not investigated such as running shoes used and footstrike pattern may also contribute to the high heterogeneity. Indeed, we could not include MT running experience or familiarization as a subgroup or in meta-regression because most studies did not clearly specify the prior experience of the participants with MT running, even though this is likely to affect the differences between the two modes [23,24,91,92]. Similarly, most studies did not specify the running shoes and footstrike pattern used.…”

Time-course of running treadmill adaptation in novice treadmill runners

“…In particular, factors such as the level of treadmill and running experience of participants, the sampling rate of the gait analysis systems used and the number of data collected during trials may be influential (Arnold et al, 2019;Cavanagh & Williams, 1982;McNeill et al, 2015). Runners studied in Lavcanska are younger and more trained which may contribute to a faster familiarization to new running conditions (Lavcanska et al, 2005).…”

“…Despite the many advantages that treadmills provide, running on treadmill can be at the beginning an unfamiliar experience, cause to the narrow belt, the constant visual field, the differences in perception and, for motorised treadmills, the imposed velocity (Fu et al, 2015;Hong et al, 2012;McNeill et al, 2015;Sloot et al, 2014). Inexperience in the use of treadmill can so lead participants to modify their natural running gait and may affect the metabolic responses to exercise (Arnold et al, 2019;Lavcanska et al, 2005).…”

“…However, most of those studies did not investigate the time/number of trials needed for these features of habituation to occur. Only Schieb noted that stride length and step frequency stabilized either after a minimum of three training trials, each lasting 15 min, or after a combination of trials with an accumulated training duration of approximately 45 min (Arnold et al, 2019). On the contrary, other kinematic parameters like contact and flight time seem not to be influenced by the habituation process (Schieb, 1986).…”