Abstract
Generally, it has been said that hill walking (HWK) may cause lower-extremity injury and slip accident. One of the reasons is that muscle fatigue in HWK is much higher than that in flat walking. However, there are little studies that have discussed relationship between sole designing and kinetics in HWK, especially in camber walking. The purpose of this study is to clarify footwear requirement properties concerning muscle fatigue reduction in HWK. To consider characteristic parameters of kinetics in HWK, motion analyses on 5 surface conditions (flat, 2-cambers: medial-tilt and lateral-tilt, downhill (Dw), uphill) were carried out. It was confirmed that large ankle power and large knee power in DwWK were found in the early stance phase. We discussed the relationship between these parameters obtained from shoes with various rear-foot structures in DwWK. In the result, the shoe whose rear-foot hardness was low and rear-foot bevel angle was close to the slope of hill surface could reduce muscle fatigue in HWK.
