Back and neck muscle activity in healthy adults during barefoot walking and walking in conventional and flexible shoes

Abstract

Purpose: Most studies on barefoot and shod walking have so far focused on leg muscle activity. However, footwear might also have an impact on the back and neck. The aim of the present study was to compare back and neck muscle activity as well as kinematic gait parameters during barefoot walking, conventional shod walking and walking in flexible shoes, commercially designed with the intention to imitate barefoot walking. Methods: Thirty healthy subjects (16 male and 14 female, mean age 31.4 AE 12.8 years) walked at self-selected speed over an instrumented walkway mat, either barefoot, with their own casual shoes or with these flexible shoes. Muscle activity was measured by EMG from the lumbar iliocostalis muscle, the lumbar longissimus muscle, the lumbar multifidi muscles, the trapezius muscle (pars descendens), the neck extensor muscles and the sternocleidomastoideus muscle. Results: The results indicated that back and neck muscle activity was slightly lower when wearing conventional footwear as opposed to walking barefoot or in the flexible shoe. Both the conventional and the flexible shoe, in contrast, significantly altered the kinematic gait parameters. Conclusions: Back and neck muscle activity was slightly influenced by footwear. The relevance of these findings should be investigated in the long term by longitudinal studies with healthy subjects as well as with patients suffering from lower back and neck pain.

Barefoot vs common footwear: A systematic review of the kinematic, kinetic and muscle activity differences during walking

“…Other variables which showed significant differences from shoes to barefoot were that of percentage double support time decreasing [13], stance time decreasing [13,17,23] swing time increasing [17] and stride time decreasing [13,19]. Gait velocity differences between conditions was variable with some studies noting a decrease in velocity when barefoot [13,17,26] and some showing no significant differences [14,19,25]. Older adults (mean age 74.60 ±7.21years) were observed to reduce their gait velocity when walking in socks compared to barefoot [25].…”

“…This reduction is limited when walking in more flexible footwear [26] and reversed in older adults when walking in socks [25]. Walking barefoot was shown to correspond to an increase in cadence [13,17,19,26] and similarly this difference was limited in more flexible footwear [26].…”

“…Walking barefoot compared to shoes results in a reduced step and/or stride length [13,14,17,19,20,26]. This reduction is limited when walking in more flexible footwear [26] and reversed in older adults when walking in socks [25].…”

“…Five studies compared the effects of more than one type of footwear to barefoot with five studies being unclear about the type of shoes used in the studies. Seven of the fourteen studies used a standardised shoe across participants and in the case of the study by Wirth et al [26] the flexible shoe Page 10 of 28 A c c e p t e d M a n u s c r i p t condition was standardised but the conventional shoes were not.…”

“…These included Australia [13,21,22], the USA [14,20,23,24], Taiwan [25], Germany [19], France [18], Brazil [15], Switzerland [26], Finland [16], Mexico [17], India [27] and Belgium [27]. Of the 15 included studies, 14 were within subject repeated measures design studies with one being a between subject comparison study [27] which comprised 3 subject groups: habitually barefoot, habitually minimally shod and habitually shod.…”