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DIFFERENCES IN GROUND REACTION FORCES BETWEEN A STIFF AND COMPLIANT GAIT

By: Kennedy Truitt

Orthopedic injuries often occur while the knee is extended, in a relatively stiff (limited change in angle) position that generates relatively high ground reaction forces (GRF, forces applied to the body from the ground). Modern humans walk with their knees in this relatively stiff position while apes, our closest relatives, utilize a compliant gait that features greater knee joint yield (decrease in knee angle). Compliant walking has been predicted to lead to lower GRFs, but there is limited data to test that presumption in walking. The Animal Locomotion Lab sought to compare the differences in GRFs, using 28 participants walking with a stiff and compliant gait. If  participants walking compliantly are shown to have lower GRFs  compared to when they walked stiffly,  implications span from orthopedics to evolutionary anthropology. The data was collected using two methods to determine the validity of an open-source and marker-less gait analysis technique (OpenCap). Traditional gait analysis requires force plates and markers to gather force and joint angle data. This method, though accurate, is resource intensive and hard to utilize in nontraditional settings. OpenCap performs the same data analysis with fewer resources and is applicable in various settings. Even though we found significant differences in the numeric values of minimums of the force traces, Open Cap still calculated accurate data for peak forces that was not statistically different, which can still provide insight into how athletes, non-athletes, healthy, and injured people move. 

Categories: BSURF 2023

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