Effects of Increased Step-Width on Knee Biomechanics During Inclined and Declined Walking.

Effects of Increased Step-Width on Knee Biomechanics During Inclined and Declined Walking. J Appl Biomech. 2020 Aug 10;:1-6 Authors: Sample DW, Thorsen TA, Weinhandl JT, Strohacker KA, Zhang S Abstract The purpose of this study was to investigate effects of preferred step width and increased step width modification on knee biomechanics of obese and healthy-weight participants during incline and decline walking. Seven healthy-weight participants and 6 participants who are obese (body mass index ≥ 30) performed 5 walking trials on level ground and a 10° inclined and declined instrumented ramp system at both preferred and wide step-widths. A 2 × 2 (step-width × group) mixed-model analysis of variance was used to examine selected variables. There were significant increases in step-width between the preferred and wide step-width conditions for all 3 walking conditions (all P < .001). An interaction was found for peak knee extension moment (P = .048) and internal knee abduction moment (KAM) (P = .025) in uphill walking. During downhill walking, there were no interaction effects. As step-width increased, KAM was reduced (P = .007). In level walking, there were no interaction effects for peak medial ground reaction force and KAM (P = .007). There was a step-width main effect for KAM (P = .007). As step-width increased, peak medial ground reaction force and peak knee extension moment increased, while KAM decreased for both healthy wei...
Source: Journal of Applied Biomechanics - Category: Sports Medicine Tags: J Appl Biomech Source Type: research