VARIANCE OF LOWER LIMB KINEMATICS DURING RUNNING ON TREADMILL

Abstract

INTRODUCTION: It is empirically known that the less variance of motion is one of the reflectors of skillfulness in sports. There are some investigations which show that the small variance in movement indicates the high repeatability of that motion (Winter, 1983; Ferrario et al., 1995). However, very little information has been obtained about the variance of kinematics during long distance running. The purpose of this study was to clarify the effect of endurance running training and running speed on the intra-individual variance of lower limb kinematics during running in order to investigate the relationship between repeatability of motion and running skill in long distance running at various speeds.