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nakayama(2010)
DATASET OCTOBER 2015
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3 AUTHORS:
Yosuke Nakayama
Kazutoshi Kudo
RIKEN
2 PUBLICATIONS 21 CITATIONS
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Tatsuyuki Ohtsuki
The University of Tokyo
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A R T I C L E I N F O
A B S T R A C T
Article history:
Received 21 July 2009
Received in revised form 3 December 2009
Accepted 10 December 2009
The current study examined variability and uctuation in the running gait cycle, focusing on differences
between trained distance runners and non-runners. The two groups of participants performed treadmill
running at 80%, 100%, and 120% of their preferred speed for 10 min. Stride-interval time-series were
recorded during running using footswitches. The average preferred speed was signicantly higher for the
trained runners than for the non-runners. The trained runners showed signicantly smaller variability of
stride interval than did the non-runners, and at the same time the scaling exponent a evaluated by
detrended uctuation analysis tended to be smaller for the trained runners. These results suggest that
expert runners can reduce variability in the trained movement without loosing dynamical degrees of
freedom for spatiotemporal organization of the gait pattern.
2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords:
Running
Stride interval
Detrended uctuation analysis (DFA)
Trained distance runners
Variability
Nonlinear time-series analysis
1. Introduction
Trained distance runners have highly adaptive cardiovascular
and musculoskeletal properties for endurance performance
compared with untrained non-runners [1]. Long-term running
practice can not only promote endurance but also produce a stable
and consistent running gait cycle because variability in interlimb
coordination has been reported to decrease with practice [2,3]. In
the early stage of research on human motor control and learning,
variability was predominantly quantied by static measures such
as standard deviation, and changes in movement variability were
discussed predominantly in relation to neuromotor noise [4].
However, the development of time-series analyses has enabled
researchers to reveal dynamic or time-dependent uctuating
properties embedded in complex data records [5]. In this study we
examined differences in the variability and uctuation of the
running gait cycle between trained distance runners and nonrunners.
Studies of running movement have shown that the strideinterval time-series tends to uctuate in a self-similar fractal
manner and exhibits long-range correlations [6]. For example, using
detrended uctuation analysis (DFA), Jordan et al. [6] showed that
the stride-interval time-series of running at a preferred running
speed (PRS) exhibits persistent long-range correlations that are
typically characterized as a 1/f uctuation. Because this type of
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +81 03 5454 6133; fax: +81 03 5454 4317.
E-mail address: kudo@idaten.c.u-tokyo.ac.jp (K. Kudo).
0966-6362/$ see front matter 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.gaitpost.2009.12.003
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2.6. Statistics
Preferred running speeds differ between runners and non-runners. Because
running speed can affect spatiotemporal variability and the uctuation in running
movement [6,17], we conducted a regression analysis for the relationship between
speed and stride-related variables (i.e., mean stride interval, CV of stride interval,
DFA exponent a). If the running speed covaried with the stride-related variables, we
conducted an analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) to examine the effect of training on
the stride-related variables after removing the variance for which the speed
accounts. Otherwise, we conducted a two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) to
examine the effect of training (runner/non-runner, between-subject factor) and
%PRS (80/100/120%PRS, within-subject factor) on these dependent variables. Since
a preliminary analysis revealed that there was no signicant difference in any of the
dependent variables between the left and right legs, we pooled the data obtained
from the both legs in the subsequent analyses.
3. Results
All the participants were able to complete all of the trials;
however, footswitch data from one participant in the non-runner
group was not recorded due to a technical problem. Therefore, the
remaining data (i.e., seven trained runners and six non-runners)
were analyzed.
3.1. Preferred running speed
Fig. 1 shows the PRS of the trained runners and non-runners.
The average PRS for trained runners (10.7 km/h) was signicantly
faster than for non-runners (8.8 km/h), t(12) = 2.27, p < 0.05, twotailed.
We detected the moment of initial foot contacts and foot-offs from the
footswitch signals using custom-written MATLAB software. Because the initial foot
contacts were from the heel in all of the participants, stride interval was dened as
the time between falling edges of the time-series.
2.5. Data analysis
The mean, standard deviation (SD), and coefcient of variation (CV: SD/
mean 100%) for the stride interval and the strength of long-range correlations
were calculated from 512 strides of data in the middle 10 min of running.
The strength of long-range correlations was calculated by DFA [7], that yields the
DFA exponent a. The stride-interval time-series of the total length N was rst
integrated:
yk
k
X
t i ht ii
i1
where t(i) is the ith stride interval and ht(i)i is the mean stride interval. The
integrated time-series was divided into windows of equal length n. For each
window, the variance contributed by the local trend was eliminated by using a
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4. Discussion
In this study, trained distance runners and non-runners
performed treadmill running at 80%, 100%, and 120% of their
preferred speed for 10 min. The PRS of the trained runners was
signicantly faster than was that of the non-runners (Fig. 1),
suggesting the trained runners adapted their cardiovascular and
musculoskeletal properties for running [1]. Mean stride interval
was smaller for the runners than for the non-runners when it was
plotted against %PRS (Fig. 3A). However, when the variance due to
running speed was removed, no signicant effect of training on
stride interval was found (Fig. 3B). This suggests that the difference
in stride interval between the two groups of participants was due
Fig. 3. Dependent variables calculated from the stride-interval time-series averaged over participants: (A) mean stride interval as a function of percentage of preferred
running speed (%PRS); (B) mean stride interval as a function of running speed; (C) coefcient of variation (CV) as a function of %PRS; (D) CV as a function of running speed; (E)
detrended uctuation analysis (DFA) exponent a as a function of %PRS; (F) DFA exponent a as a function of running speed.
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