Abstract
Excerpt: PURPOSE:Treadmill use is widespread in clinical and fitness settings due to the many advantages afforded for rehabilitation and general exercise training. Types of treadmills include: the traditional motorized treadmill, the non-motorized treadmill, and the non-motorized curved treadmill. Walking and running on these different types of treadmills is believed to elicit different lower extremity kinematics and temporal-spatial gait adaptions responses, but these comparative data do not exist in one comprehensive investigation. Understanding the root causes of these biomechanical variables across different types of widely used treadmills can provide greater insight guiding their use in clinical practice. The purpose of this study was to establish if differences exist in select lower extremity joint kinematics (hip flexion, hip abduction, hip rotation, pelvic obliquity, knee flexion, ankle dorsiflexion) and temporal gait variables (stance time, gait cadence), between walking and running on a curved, nonmotorized treadmill and a standard motorized treadmill.