Classifying runners based on the 'duty factor'

Craig Payne · Jul 31, 2022

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This starting to turn up on the radar lately with increased frequency.

"Duty factor" = the ratio of ground contact time (tc) to stride time [tc + swing time (ts)].
A higher duty factor reflects a greater relative contribution of tc to the running stride

NewsBot · Jul 31, 2022

Duty factor and foot-strike pattern do not represent similar running pattern at the individual level
Aurélien Patoz, Thibault Lussiana, Bastiaan Breine, Cyrille Gindre & Davide Malatesta
Scientific Reports volume 12, Article number: 13061 (2022)

Runners were classified using their duty factor (DF) and using their foot-strike pattern (FSP; rearfoot, midfoot, or forefoot strikers), determined from their foot-strike angle (FSA). High and low DF runners showed different FSPs but DF was assumed to not only reflect what happens at initial contact with the ground (more global than FSP/FSA). Hence, FSP and DF groups should not necessarily be constituted by the same runners. However, the relation between FSP and DF groups has never been investigated, leading to the aim of this study. One hundred runners ran at 9, 11, and 13 km/h. Force data (1000 Hz) and whole-body kinematics (200 Hz) were acquired by an instrumented treadmill and optoelectronic system and were used to classify runners according to their FSA and DF. Weak correlations were obtained between FSA and DF values and a sensitivity of 50% was reported between FSP and DF groups, i.e., only one in two runners was attributed to the DF group supposedly corresponding to the FSP group. Therefore, ‘local’ FSP/FSA and DF do not represent similar running pattern information when investigated at the individual level and DF should be preferred to FSP/FSA when evaluating the global running pattern of a runner.
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