A foot joint and muscle force assessment of the running stance phase whilst wearing normal shoes and bionic shoes

Purpose: The aim of this study was to investigate the differences in ankle joint parameters of biomechanics changes between the normal shoes (NS) and the bionic shoes (BS) during the running stance phases. Methods: A total of 40 Chinese male runners from Ningbo University were recruited for this study (age: 22.3 ± 3.01 years; height: 174.67 ± 7.11 cm; body weight (BW): 66.83 ± 9.91 kg). The participants were asked to perform a running task. Statistical parametric mapping (SPM) analysis was used to investigate any differences between NS and BS during the running stance phases. The principal component analysis (PCA) and support vector machine (SVM) were used to further explore the differences of the muscle force between the BS and NS. Results: Significant differences ( p < 0.05) were found in the first metatarsophalangeal joint (MPJ1), ground reaction force (GRF), ankle joint and around muscle forces. Furthermore, the accuracy of SVM model in identifying the gait muscle force between BS and NS reached 100%, which proved that the BS had a very large impact on the gait muscle force compared with NS. Conclusions: We found that BS may be better suited to the human condition than other unstable shoes, or even NS. In addition, our results suggest that BS play an important role in reducing ankle injuries during running by increasing muscle participation in unstable conditions while better restoring the most primitive instability of foot condition that humans have.