Full quantification of human movement has the potential to give deep insights into health and fitness and is valuable in detecting abnormalities and predicting potential issues in locomotion.
With Plantiga’s movement detection technology focused on each foot strike, we take strides toward realizing the goal of comprehensive gait analysis and the resulting benefits to health and performance. In this document, we introduce commonly analyzed gait and jump parameters and discuss how Plantiga’s sensor-embedded insole system measures them effectively at the source.
Understanding human bipedal locomotion is key in solving the puzzle of integrated human movement. Measurement and monitoring of locomotive strategies such as walking, running and jumping has many applications in informing rehabilitation programs for the injured and elderly and performance monitoring for professional and casual athletes and workers. These tactics can help to prevent injury, reduce return-to-health timelines and improve performance in sport.
Plantiga enables this by collecting high quality gait data at the terminus of the kinetic chain using inertial measurement unit (IMU) sensors located under the foot and offering actionable insights derived from this data.
Gait describes a person’s unique manner of locomotion, achieved through movement of the lower kinetic chain while affecting and being affected by the upper kinetic chain. Analyzing gait patterns in walking and running can give insight into the state of the entire body: altered or modified gait patterns can indicate underlying musculoskeletal problems which may lead to injury or may themselves be indicative of injury.
Running and walking gaits result from a cyclic series of movements, typically referred to as a gait cycle [6]. The cycle is shown in figure 1.
Figure 1: Gait cycle [6]
The cycle is divided in two phases: the stance phase and the swing phase. The stance phase begins when the foot touches the ground and ends with the foot leaving the ground. The swing phase begins when the foot leaves the ground and ends at the next contact with the ground.
The parameters that quantify the gait cycle include:
With motion capture located at the distal end of the kinetic chain involved in the gait cycle, Plantiga insoles optimize capture of changes in gait parameters and the gait cycle as a whole. A sample IMU signal for the walking gait cycle detected by the Plantiga insole is shown in figure 2.
Figure 2: Gait stance and swing phase
