Biomechanical Analysis of Walking: Effects of Gait Velocity and Arm Swing Amplitude

Human walking has been extensively studied by many investigators and numerous mathematical models of lower limb movements have been developed but few reports have been written about the contribution of the upper limbs to the locomotion process. The aim of this study was to investigate the influence of walking speed and the effect of the upper limb swing on the trajectory of the whole body mass center, as well as on the ground reaction forces during human walking. An automatized method for determination of the whole body mass centre has been established. Gait analysis has been performed on 52 subjects using the Elite system and Kistler force platform. The recording of trajectories of characteristic body points on the subjects and the measurement of ground reaction forces have been performed at normal speed walking with natural and emphasized rhythmic upper limb swing and at fast speed walking. The determined mean values of normalised components of trajectory of the body mass centre and ground reaction forces have been compared. The study has shown that components of ground reaction forces and trajectory of the whole body centre of mass are influenced by changes in arm swing and gait velocity. The maximum magnitudes of components of the ground reaction force increased for normal speed walking with the emphasized upper limb swing. The emphasized upper limb swing decrease the magnitude of vertical oscillations of the body center of mass and thus may influence the energy expenditure.