Principal Component Analysis of the Running Ground Reaction Forces With Different Speeds

Abstract

Ground reaction force (GRF) is a key metric in biomechanical research, including parameters of loading rate (LR), first impact peak, second impact peak, and transient between first and second impact peaks in heel strike runners. The GRFs vary over time during stance. This study was aimed to investigate the variances of GRFs in rearfoot striking runners across incremental speeds. Thirty female and male runners joined the running tests on the instrumented treadmill with speeds of 2.7, 3.0, 3.3, and 3.7 m/s. The discrete parameters of vertical average loading rate in the current study are consistent with the literature findings. The principal component analysis was modeled to investigate the main variances (95%) in the GRFs over stance. The females varied in the magnitude of braking and propulsive forces (PC1, 84.93%), whereas the male runners varied in the timing of propulsion (PC1, 53.38%). The female runners dominantly varied in the transient between the first and second peaks of vertical GRF (PC1, 36.52%) and LR (PC2, 33.76%), whereas the males variated in the LR and second peak of vertical GRF (PC1, 78.69%). Knowledge reported in the current study suggested the difference of the magnitude and patterns of GRF between male and female runners across different speeds. These findings may have implications for the prevention of sex-specific running-related injuries and could be integrated with wearable signals for the in-field prediction and estimation of impact loadings and GRFs.

Relationship Between Isokinetic Lower-Limb Joint Strength, Isometric Time Force Characteristics, and Leg-Spring Stiffness in Recreational Runners

“…As the reliability of data in RFD periods (especially for 50-150 ms) was relatively low (Merrigan et al, 2020), resistance training experience may have led to an unstable IMPT value. In addition, previous studies indicated that with the increase in the running speed, both the average vGRF (Hamill et al, 1983) and vertical average loading rate (the slope of the first vGRF from 20 to 80% of the stance time) (Yu et al, 2021) will increase. Additionally, the running speeds in the present study were relatively low (12 and 14 km•h −1 ) and did not require explosive contraction, which may have resulted in a limited correlation with leg-spring stiffness.…”

A Wearable Shear Force Transducer Based on Color Spectrum Analysis

“…This sensor could serve as a monitoring system for tissue health and lead to improved prevention and healthcare strategies for plantar tissue ulcers. Shear forces may increase as high as 4 N/kg in other walking conditions (e.g., stair ascent/descent and ramp ascent/descent [26]) and higher in athletics scenarios [27][28][29]. Future research should explore the ability of the current sensor design to measure forces in this range.…”

Dataset of lower extremity joint angles, moments and forces in distance running

“…In terms of the static and dynamic (walking and running) markers' trajectories, the gaps were visually checked and manually filled (using ‘pattern fill’ according to the shape of another trajectory without a gap to fill the selected gap) to avoid inconsistent trajectories [ 64 ]. As for the walking and running ground reaction forces, a threshold of 20N in the vertical direction was employed for the detection of foot strike and toe off to define the stance [ 38 , 47 , 66 , 67 ]. A pipeline was set in the workstation of Nexus to export the raw C3D files.…”

“…This technique was originated and developed from the Statistical Parametric Mapping [ 39 ], to check significance between variables based on random field theory (RFT) [ 36 , 37 , 40 ]. Similarly, the Principal Component Analysis (PCA) [ 41 ] and Functional Data Analysis (FDA) [ 42 ] are recently employed to reveal knee angle variations in pathological gait [ 43 ], gait coordination and variability [ 44 ], strike patterns [ 45 ], running level classification [ 46 ], ground reaction forces [ 47 ], foot postures and function [ 48 ], jumping performance and force output [ 49 , 50 , 51 , 52 ], bilateral limb asymmetry [ 53 ], and kinematic patterns from injury [ 54 ].…”