Gait Stability Characteristics in Able-Bodied Individuals During Self-paced Inclined Treadmill Walking: Within-Subject Repeated-Measures Study
Bibliographic record
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Inclined walking is a challenging task that requires active neuromuscular control to maintain stability. However, the adaptive strategies that preserve stability during inclined walking are not well understood. Investigating the effects of self-paced inclined treadmill walking on gait stability characteristics and the activation patterns of key lower limb muscles can provide insights into these strategies. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of self-paced inclined treadmill walking on gait stability characteristics and the activation of key lower limb muscles. METHODS: Twenty-eight able-bodied individuals (mean age 25.02, SD 2.06 years) walked on an augmented instrumented treadmill for 3 minutes at 3 inclination angles (-8°, 0°, and 8°) at their preferred walking speed. Changes in gait characteristics (ie, stability, walking speed, spatial-temporal, kinematic, and muscle forces) across inclination angles were assessed using a repeated measures ANOVA and the Friedman test. RESULTS: The study revealed that inclined treadmill walking has a significant impact on gait characteristics (P<.001). Changes were observed in spatial-temporal parameters, joint angles, and muscle activations depending on the treadmill inclination. Specifically, stability and walking speed decreased significantly during uphill walking, indicating that it was the most challenging walking condition. Uphill walking also led to a decrease in spatial parameters by at least 13.53% and a 5.26% to 10.96% increase in temporal parameters. Furthermore, joint kinematics and peak activation of several muscles, including the hamstrings (biceps femoris, long head=109.5%, biceps femoris, short head=53.3%, semimembranosus=98.9%, semitendinosus=90.9%), gastrocnemius (medial gastrocnemius=40.6%, lateral gastrocnemius=35.3%), and vastii muscles (vastus intermedius=12.8%, vastus lateralis=16.7%) increased significantly during uphill walking. In contrast, downhill walking resulted in bilateral reductions in spatial-temporal gait parameters, with knee flexion increasing and hip flexion and ankle dorsiflexion decreasing. The peak activation of antagonist muscles, such as the quadriceps, tibialis anterior, and tibialis posterior, significantly increased during downhill walking (rectus femoris=97.7%, vastus lateralis =70.6%, vastus intermedius=68.7%, tibialis anterior=72%, tibialis posterior=107.1%). CONCLUSIONS: Our findings demonstrate that able-bodied individuals adopt specific walking patterns during inclined treadmill walking to maintain a comfortable and safe walking performance. The results suggest that inclined treadmill walking has the potential to serve as a functional assessment and rehabilitation tool for gait stability by targeting muscle training. Future research should investigate the effects of inclined treadmill walking on individuals with gait impairments and the potential benefits of targeted muscle training. A better understanding of the adaptive strategies used during inclined walking may lead to the development of more effective rehabilitation interventions for individuals with lower limb injuries.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".