Abstract
Runners and especially long-distance runners face various overuse injuries, such as Achilles tendinopathy, shin splints or stress fractures. These overuse injuries are caused in parts by the repetitive load application on musculoskeletal structures. Otherwise, the load repartition in running is narrowly related to the foot strike pattern adopted. Three foot strike patterns are typically identified: heel strike, midfoot strike and forefoot strike. Depending the foot strike pattern adopted, the intensity and location of loads applied on the runner’s body differ and so indirectly the risk to sustain certain overuse injuries. As a consequence, identifying runner foot strike pattern profile is of interest in order to prevent injuries by giving training and/or footwear recommendations according to the runner-specific injury history. This chapter aims at presenting a simple method for determining foot strike pattern in situ and continuously. This method requires two accelerometers to record heel and forefoot accelerations. From these signals, the delay between the heel and metatarsals strikes, represented by their respective peak acceleration, is measured. From this temporal variable, the percentage of each foot strike pattern over a race or a training session is evaluated. By synchronizing accelerometers with GPS unit, this method also permit to study the interaction between fatigue, slope, surface, etc., and the foot strike pattern profile for a given runner. This simple method is of interest for fundamental research but also for clinicians, coaches or running shoe manufacturers.
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Giandolini, M. (2018). A Simple Method for Determining Foot Strike Pattern During Running. In: Morin, JB., Samozino, P. (eds) Biomechanics of Training and Testing. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-05633-3_9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-05633-3_9
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