Title: Optimal walking speed following changes in limb geometry (2011)
Author: Françoise Leurs, Yuri P. Ivanenko, Ana Bengoetxea, Ana-Maria Cebolla, Bernard Dan,
Francesco Lacquaniti and Guy A. Cheron
Accepted: 29 March 2011
Retrieved from: http://jeb.biologists.org/content/214/13/2276.full.pdf
In this article,
researchers wanted to find out if walking speed of humans depended solely on
total limb length or limb segment proportions.
They hypothesized that by having a longer total limb length, less metabolic
energy would be consumed, and thus, people with longer limb length would have a
faster optimal speed compared to those with a shorter limb length.
Hence, they decided to get subjects to walk on
articulated stilts that artificially elongated the limb by 40cm and compared
the kinematics, electromyographic
activity and oxygen consumption results from walking on a treadmill at
different speeds to that of subjects without stilts.
At the end of the experiment, results showed that stride length did increase for those who walked on stilts. However, it was emphasised that increases in stride length were significantly smaller than those predicted from the proportional increment of the leg length.
In conclusion, this article showed that specific limb segment proportions played a more essential role in the kinematics and energetics of walking and there was no significant relationship between the total limb length and walking speed.
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