Correlation of Biomechanical Performance Measures with Speed, Acceleration and Deceleration in Human Overground Running

Earlier research results suggest that certain optimization processes take place in the human nervous system during body movement including locomotion. These processes might employ a combination of cost functions that make adaptation possible to the changing conditions, such as terrain or to certain intentions such as maintaining locomotion speed. We focus on the exploration of the changes in human body kinematics and kinetics, related to well-defined cost functions, such as energy dissipation, energy conservation or energy accumulation. These cost functions are in analogy with deceleration, constant speed locomotion and acceleration. Hence, we collected measurement data of eight athletes with five different tasks: (1) slow, (2) convenient, (3) high speed running, (4) acceleration and (5) deceleration. Correlation tests showed that the effect of varying speed and acceleration can be distinguished. The variation in running speed can be effectively indicated by the knee angle, the relative horizontal position of the center of mass and the center of foot pressure (CoM-CoP distance), the loading rate, the peak tibial shock, the foot angle and the shank angle, while the variation in the acceleration can be indicated by the angle of the trunk, the CoM-CoP distance, the average ground reaction force angle and the horizontal force components in the joints.