Kinematics Analysis of Male Runners via Forefoot and Rearfoot Strike Strategies: A Preliminary Study

Abstract

This study aimed to explore the kinematic characteristics of males using various foot landing strategies. The participants were fifteen male students from Physical Education College, Huaibei (non-professional runners, who did not have a fixed running landing strategy mode) (mean height = 178.20 cm; mean weight = 67.60 kg; mean age = 19.40 years). In this experiment, the running model of different foot landing strategies (forefoot strike, FFS and rearfoot strike, RFS) were analyzed using two high-speed cameras captured simultaneously at a sampling rate of 100 Hz. According to the results, the runners with better sports performance have shorter contact time, longer flight time, lower duty factor, larger stride angle, faster V COG, greater A COG, and knee and ankle angles which were crucial kinematics factors to enhance the running. Therefore, this study recommends that coaches or researchers can use photography to analyze novice runners who do not have a fixed landing pattern, and to let novice runners who have a long flight time choose RFS mode for training and for beginners with a larger stride angle, choose FFS mode for training.