Footwear effects on human performance

We wear footwear every day to complement diverse activities and lifestyles, from leisure walking to performance sprinting, and everything in between. Determining whether a certain type of footwear alters performance remains a key challenge with each innovation. While we know that sensory feedback from the foot influences our ‘feel’ for the ground, how these sensations alter the nervous system’s command for generating force is largely unknown. This raises the critical question of how a shoe’s properties affect an individual’s ability to generate force. This project aims to address this question by developing a framework to provide clients with direct, evidence-based insights into how footwear properties affect human performance. Using high-density surface electromyography (HDsEMG), this project will investigate the underlying neural control of muscles as participants push against the ground in footwear with various footwear properties.

Faculty Supervisor:

Greg Pearcey

Student:

Partner:

Fjord Scientific Consulting

Discipline:

Engineering

Sector:

Professional, scientific and technical services

University:

Memorial University of Newfoundland

Program: