The purpose of this study was to assess kinematic lower extremity motion patterns (hip flexion, knee flexion, knee valgus, and ankle dorsiflexion) during various foot-landing techniques (self-preferred, forefoot, and rear foot) between genders. 3-D kinematics were collected on 50 (25 male and 25 female) college-age recreational athletes selected from a sample of convenience. Separate repeated-m...

BACKGROUND Below-knee amputees commonly experience asymmetrical gait patterns and develop comorbidities in their intact and residual legs. Carbon fiber prosthetic feet have been developed to minimize these asymmetries by utilizing elastic energy storage and return to provide body support, forward propulsion and leg swing initiation. However, how prosthetic foot stiffness influences walking char...

Impact forces and shock deceleration during jumping and running have been associated with various knee injury etiologies. This study investigates the influence of jump height and knee contact angle on peak ground reaction force and segment axial accelerations. Ground reaction force, segment axial acceleration, and knee angles were measured for 6 male subjects during vertical jumping. A simple s...

OBJECTIVE To examine the frequency domain characteristics of the ground reaction forces of young and elderly females during free walking. DESIGN Independent t-tests were used to examine the frequency content of all three components of the ground reaction force. BACKGROUND Frequency domain analysis has the potential to assist in identifying changes in gait that may be masked in the time doma...

Objective. To examine the frequency domain characteristics of the ground reaction forces of young and elderly females during free walking. Design. Independent t-tests were used to examine the frequency content of all three components of the ground reaction force. Background. Frequency domain analysis has the potential to assist in identifying changes in gait that may be masked in the time domai...

The aim of the present study was to analyse the parameters that characterize the vertical ground reaction force during the landing phase of a jump, and to determine the relationship among these parameters in elite soccer players with cerebral palsy (CP). Thirteen male members of the Spanish national soccer team for people with CP (mean age: 27.1 ± 4.7 years) volunteered for the study. Each part...

Facultative bipedalism during load transport in nonhuman primates has been argued to be an important behavior potentially leading to the evolution of obligate, extended limb bipedalism. Understanding the biomechanics of such behavior may lead to insights about associated morphology, which may translate to interpretation of features in the fossil record. Some populations of bearded capuchin monk...

Background: Human movement such as physical work, exercise and sport activities can be analyzed to determine kinetic (force) and kinematic (motion) characteristics. In the past, proper assessment of force variables requires force plates that can limit the types of activities performed. Additionally, large amounts of data are often generated, requiring often tedious and time-consuming analyses a...

This paper proposes a stable modifiable walking pattern generator with a vertical foot motion generated by a central pattern generator that is obtained from the evolutionary constrained optimization. A modifiable walking pattern generator is employed which generates sagittal and lateral position trajectories of center of mass of humanoid robot and a CPG generates the vertical foot trajectory of...