The ‘ride’ feeling during running under field conditions—objectified with a single inertial measurement unit

Abstract

Foot rollover and the ‘ride’ feeling that occurs during heel–toe transition during running have been investigated mostly in laboratory settings due to the technical requirements of ‘golden standard’ measurement devices. Hence, the purpose of the current study was to investigate ‘ride’ and rollover with a heel cap-mounted inertial measurement unit (IMU) when running under field conditions to get realistic results. Twenty athletes ran on a 1 km outdoor track with five different shoe conditions, only differing in their midsole bending stiffness. The peak angular velocity (PAV) in the sagittal plane of the shoe was analyzed. The subjective evaluation of the ‘ride’ perception during heel–toe transition was rated on a visual analogue scale. The results revealed that PAV and ‘ride’ varied for the different shoes. The regression analysis showed that PAV has a significant impact on the ‘ride’ rating (R2 = 0.952; p = 0.005). The shoe with a medium midsole bending stiffness had the lowest value for PAV (845.6 deg/s) and the best rating of perceived ‘ride’ on average. Our results show that IMU can be used as a low-cost method to investigate the heel–toe transition during field-running. In addition, we found that midsole bending stiffness influenced PAV and the subjective feeling of ‘ride’.