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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Sports Act. Living
Sec. Biomechanics and Control of Human Movement
Volume 6 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fspor.2024.1411037

Placing the leading limb closer to an obstacle reduces collision of the trailing limb: an investigation in a virtual environment

Provisionally accepted
Tomoki Hakamata Tomoki Hakamata Juntaro Sakazaki Juntaro Sakazaki Takahiro Higuchi Takahiro Higuchi *
  • Department of Health Promotion Science, Tokyo Metropolitan University, Hachioji, Japan

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Introduction: When walking and stepping over an obstacle of a certain height, tripping occurs more frequently with the trailing limb than the leading limb. The present study was designed to address whether collisions involving the trailing limb can be improved with experimental manipulation of the placement of the leading limb after stepping over an obstacle. We used an immersive, virtual obstacle-crossing task to ensure that the collision was not improved simply due to the experience of physical collision with an obstacle.Methods: Fourteen young participants (12 males and 2 females, 28.7 ± 3.5 years) were required to walk and step over a virtual horizontal pole under one of four conditions. In three conditions, participants were required to place their leading foot on a square target located along their walking path after crossing the obstacle. The target was positioned so that it was relatively close to the obstacle (10 cm from the obstacle, referred to hereafter as the closer condition), at a position that would naturally be stepped on in successful trials without a collision (20 cm from the obstacle, the middle condition), or relatively far from the obstacle (40 cm from the obstacle, the farther condition). For the fourth condition, participants were free to select where they would step after stepping over the obstacle (the control condition).The results showed that the collision rate of the trailing limb was significantly lower under the closer condition than under the other three conditions.Compared to the control condition, under the closer condition the movement of the trailing limb was modified so that obstacle crossing was performed at approximately the moment when the height of the toe of the trailing limb was higher, and the walking speed was slower. These findings suggest that placing the foot of the leading limb closer to the obstacle after crossing the obstacle may ensure safe obstacle avoidance by the trailing limb.

    Keywords: Walking, Obstacle crossing, collision avoidance, virtual reality, Motion analysis

    Received: 03 Apr 2024; Accepted: 31 Jul 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Hakamata, Sakazaki and Higuchi. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Takahiro Higuchi, Department of Health Promotion Science, Tokyo Metropolitan University, Hachioji, Japan

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