Shock Acceleration and Attenuation during Running with Minimalist and Maximalist Shoes: A Time- and Frequency-Domain Analysis of Tibial Acceleration

Abstract

Tibial shock attenuation is part of the mechanism that maintains human body stabilization during running. It is crucial to understand how shock characteristics transfer from the distal to proximal joint in the lower limb. This study aims to investigate the shock acceleration and attenuation among maximalist shoes (MAXs), minimalist shoes (MINs), and conventional running shoes (CONs) in time and frequency domains. Time-domain parameters included time to peak acceleration and peak resultant acceleration, and frequency-domain parameters contained lower (3–8 Hz) and higher (9–20 Hz) frequency power spectral density (PSD) and shock attenuation. Compared with CON and MAX conditions, MINs significantly increased the peak impact acceleration of the distal tibia (p = 0.01 and p < 0.01). Shock attenuation in the lower frequency depicted no difference but was greater in the MAXs in the higher frequency compared with the MIN condition (p < 0.01). MINs did not affect the tibial shock in both time and frequency domains at the proximal tibia. These findings may provide tibial shock information for choosing running shoes and preventing tibial stress injuries.

3D Tibial Acceleration and Consideration of 3D Angular Motion Using IMUs on Peak Tibial Acceleration and Impulse in Running

“…Axial peak accelerations measured by the distal IMU accelerometer (a IMU z ) were slightly higher compared with the proximal IMU accelerometer on a group level; however, there was no significant difference found between both IMU locations over all speeds (Table 1). This indicates that it did not matter here where the IMU was attached, but this is in contrast with previous literature (6,16,17). Lucas-Cuevas et al ( 6) did find a significant difference between a distal and proximal location at 2.2, 2.8, and 3.3 m•s −1 .…”

“…Accelerometers were attached close to the distal end and to the anteromedial aspect of the tibial; however, no clear participant-specific clarification was given (6). The results of (6,16,17) show the importance of the location of the accelerometer in PTA estimates. The nonsignificant difference between peak proximal and distal accelerations found here can be explained by the fact that the IMUs could be located closer to each other at the tibia, resulting in a smaller difference between the distal and proximal IMU accelerations.…”

“…In previous work, Lafortune and Hennig (18) used high-speed video recording to estimate centripetal acceleration during running, and showed that this could be as high as 50 m•s −2 proximally at the tibia. In other studies, significant differences between distal and proximal PTA estimates were found (6,16,17). However, only accelerometers were used in these studies, and therefore, it was not possible to take into account the contribution of the centripetal and tangential components.…”

“…Even though the tibia is often considered a rigid body, the location of the sensor at the tibia influences PTA (14)(15)(16)(17). Because the tibia is a rotating segment around the ankle joint during stance, acceleration measured by an accelerometer does not only consist of acceleration caused by impact with the ground (18).…”

“…However, this is often not complied with because the typically used accelerometers cannot measure the kinematics needed to assess gravitational, centripetal, and tangential acceleration (14,15,17). The generally used assumption that PTA can be measured with an accelerometer anywhere on the tibia, because the tibia is a rigid body, is not correct because distal and proximal peak accelerations measured by an accelerometer differ significantly (6,14,16,17).…”