On the variability of human leg stiffness across strides during running gait and some consequences for the analysis of kinematic and kinetic data

Alessandro Maria Selvitella

Purdue University Fort Wayne

"On the variability of human leg stiffness across strides during running gait and some consequences for the analysis of kinematic and kinetic data"

In this presentation, we discuss a recent analysis of the variability of human leg stiffness across strides during running. We analyze the effects of speed, mass, and age on the dependence of the stiffness across strides. The major finding of our analysis is that the time series of several measurements of human leg stiffness show autocorrelation at large lags. Our results hint at the fact that feedforward strategies might be preferred at higher velocities. Furthermore, our analysis questions the common practice in biomechanics that researchers consider each stride as independent. We recommend caution in doing so, without first confirming the independence of any biomechanical measurements across strides with rigorous statistical tests such as those developed in our work. This is a joint work with Prof. Kathleen Lois Foster, Department of Biology, Ball State University.
Additional authors: Prof. Kathleen Lois Foster, Department of Biology, Ball State University.

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