EVALUATION OF IMPACT ACCELERATION IN RUNNING FOOT STRIKE DEPENDING ON PAVEMENT TYPES

Abstract

 Foot strike impact during running is an important issue for long distance runners because it largely affects their fatigue and injury. It is easy to assume that the impact depends on hardness of pavement surface as well as runner's weight, their foot strike patterns and softness of shoes. In order to measure differences of impact accelerations related to pavement types in running foot strike, this study conducted a field running test employing special shoes containing a wireless motion sensor in the shoe sole. Wearing the shoes, four recreational runners ran a flat 800-meter course which has four types of surfaces, namely, grass, interlocking block pavement and two types of asphalt concrete, at a speed of 10 kilometer per hour. According to the measurement results by the motion sensor in the shoe sole, peak impact acceleration is larger in the case of harder surface, and the difference by the surface type is more noticeable on the horizontal acceleration, or the running directional component of acceleration, than the vertical acceleration.