ANALYSIS OF INSTANTANEOUS ENERGY OF NORMAL GAIT

The energy components of human gait in the sagittal plane were analyzed employing kinematic and anthropometric data. The television data source did not encumber natural gait and was sufficiently complete so that drastic simplifying assumptions were not necessary for the analysis. The instantaneous kinetic (translational and rotational) and potential energy was calculated for the shank, thigh and torso. The torso acted as a conservative system with about half of its change in potential and kinetic energy interchanging. The thigh conserved about 1/3 of its energy change. The shank had the largest total energy changes, but virtually no exchange between kinetic and potential. In all but the shank the rotational kinetic component, 1/2I.omega.2, could be ignored. The stride-to-stride changes in total body energy were < 4% of the average body energy.