Inter-muscular coordination during running on grass, concrete and treadmill.

Running is an exercise that can be performed in different environments that imposes distinct foot-floor interactions. For instance, running on grass may help reducing instantaneous vertical impact loading, while compromising natural speed. Inter-muscular coordination during running is an important factor to understand motor performance, but little is known regarding the impact of running surface hardness on inter-muscular coordination.

Coordination variability reduced for soccer players compared to non-athletes during the stance phase of gait.

Background: Soccer is a unilateral sports activity that may alter the spatiotemporal characteristics of gait. This may alter motor control of gait in the dominant leg in soccer players and lead to a sport-specific gait pattern, which has not yet been considered. We aimed to determine whether soccer players exhibit differences in the lower extremity coupling variability during gait compared to healthy non-athletes.

Surface EMG variability while running on grass, concrete and treadmill.

This study aimed to investigate whether inter-trial variability in muscle activity (electromyography, EMG) during running is influenced by the number of acquired steps and running surface. Nine healthy participants ran at preferred speed on treadmill, concrete, and grass. Tibial acceleration and surface EMG from 12 lower limb muscles were recorded.