New research on Non-motorized treadmills.

Facts:

•Non-motorised treadmill locomotion creates large reductions in tibial acceleration.
•Non-motorised treadmill locomotion increases lower limb muscular activation.
•Non-motorised treadmill locomotion decreases cycle time/increases step frequency.

Keep these things in mind when you are doing a treadmill gait analysis. We have discussed over and over again of the severe and misleading information gleaned from gait analysis, that it shows strategies around problems, often not the problem at hand. But, this is yet one more factor to keep in mind when you are doing such studies, that changing the surface and how and why any given work is being performed on a given surface/device, that the information can be tainted if you do not know exactly what you are dealing with.   

Few studies are perfect, look at all of the parameters they likely should, and understand the complexity of the model they examine in their entirety. None the less, there is information to glean from most studies that help to debate, refute or clarify working concepts presently proven or unproven. This study provides some conclusions as well, that should be take in, digested and then determined where, when and if appropriate for a client.

Tibial impacts and muscle activation during walking, jogging and running when performed overground, and on motorised and non-motorised treadmills

Montgomery, Dobson, Smith & Ditroilo

http://www.gaitposture.com/article/S0966-6362(16)30116-3/abstract?platform=hootsuite