Effect of a load distribution system on mobility and performance during simulated and field hiking while under load

Load Carriage During Walking Increases Dynamic Stiffness at Distal Lower Limb Joints

“…A study investigating unloaded gait showed a nonuniform increase of dynamic stiffness among lower limb joints with increasing gait speed. 13 There are different forms to carry a load (eg, backpack, double packs, and trunk vest), 37 and since the load distribution affects biomechanics, 38,39 this can also impact dynamic joint stiffness. Future studies should investigate how dynamic joint stiffness changes across a continuum of loads and speeds, as well as load carriage distribution.…”

Military load carriage effects on the gait of military personnel: A systematic review

“…Average and peak plantar pressure (Goffar et al, 2013;Park et al, 2013) and the plantar area (Park et al, 2013) increase in loaded conditions compared to unloaded, however, distribution of plantar pressure between plantar regions was unchanged (Goffar et al, 2013). Load carriage increased peak anterior-posterior breaking (Majumdar et al, 2013;Sessoms et al, 2020;Tilbury-Davis and Hooper, 1999) and propulsive (Majumdar et al, 2013) ground reaction forces and impulse (Majumdar et al, 2013;Tilbury-Davis and Hooper, 1999), and vertical impact (Goffar et al, 2013;Majumdar et al, 2013;Sessoms et al, 2020) and propulsive (Majumdar et al, 2013) forces and impulse (Goffar et al, 2013;Majumdar et al, 2013;Tilbury-Davis and Hooper, 1999). Medio-lateral ground reaction forces were lower in loaded conditions than unloaded but power and work were increased (Tilbury-Davis and Hooper, 1999), anterior-posterior and vertical power and work were also increased (Tilbury-Davis and Hooper, 1999).…”

“…Of the 8 studies reporting results for spatio-temporal variables 5 studies reported no effect. Specifically, walking speed (Majumdar et al, 2010;Park et al, 2013), step or stride length (Coombes and Kingswell, 2005;Majumdar et al, 2010;Park et al, 2013;Schulze et al, 2014;Sessoms et al, 2020), cadence (Coombes and Kingswell, 2005;Majumdar et al, 2010), step width (Park et al, 2013;Sessoms et al, 2020), and double and single support time (Majumdar et al, 2010). Studies reporting no effect employed backpack or combined backpack and armour loads of 10.7-34.7 kg (Majumdar et al, 2010;Schulze et al, 2014;Sessoms et al, 2020), 8 kg webbing (Coombes and Kingswell, 2005), vest or body armour loads of 8-27 kg (Coombes and Kingswell, 2005;Park et al, 2013) and when also carrying a rifle (Majumdar et al, 2010;Schulze et al, 2014;Sessoms et al, 2020).…”

“…Trunk sway has been reported to decrease (Sessoms et al, 2020) with an increase in trunk (Attwells et al, 2006;Brown et al, 2014;Majumdar et al, 2010) and neck (Attwells et al, 2006) flexion and greater sample entropy of transverse and frontal plane trunk motion (Morrison et al, 2019) during loaded treadmill (Sessoms et al, 2020) and overground (Attwells et al, 2006;Majumdar et al, 2010;Morrison et al, 2019) walking and during running and the walk-run transition (Brown et al, 2014). No change in trunk flexion were however reported during treadmill walking with body armour, backpack and rifle load (Sessoms et al, 2020).…”

“…Trunk flexion also increases the strain on connective tissue and spinal curvature causing low back pain and injury (Orr et al, 2014). Furthermore, greater ground reaction forces and loading rates in loaded conditions (Lobb et al, 2019;Sessoms et al, 2020) increase joint contact forces causing fatigue and damage to articular structures (Lenton et al, 2018). When combined with increased rearfoot eversion, higher loading rates caused by load carriage increases the risk of tibial stress fractures (Baggaley et al, 2020).…”