Evaluation of foot kinematics during endurance running on different surfaces in real-world environments

Abstract

Despite the fact that endurance running is an outdoor sport, most studies regarding foot kinematics have been conducted indoors in laboratories due to the stationary measurement equipment. Small and low-cost inertial measurement units (IMU) have proven to be accurate measurement tools for foot kinematics. In this study, we used such IMUs to evaluate the effect of different running surfaces on foot kinematics in a real-world scenario. For data collection, twenty amateur runners ran for at least one kilometer on six different surfaces, which were asphalt, tartan, gravel, bark mulch, grass and trail. From the acquired IMU data, we computed the sole angle, the maximum sole angle velocity, the range of motion in the frontal plane and the maximum pronation velocity for each stride. The results showed that the maximum angular rates as well as the absolute rotations are higher for stiffer and more consistent surfaces like tartan and asphalt.