When scrolling through the running analysis of your customer, it is important to take a moment and explain the unique footstrike of your customer. It usually helps to just explain what you see.
The footstrike, or the live pressure map, is indicated by different colours, ranging from light blue to dark red. Where light blue is the lowest pressure and dark red is the highest pressure of the customer.
The orange line in the footstrike represents the gaitline of the customer. The gaitline is unique to every customer, and it represents the roll of the foot during a step on the ground. The following three parts of a footstrike are important to highlight:
Strike: the strike is the moment when the foot first contacts the ground. It is important to pay attention if the gait line is moving towards the inside (medial) or the outside (lateral) of the foot.
Mid-stance: during this phase, the body will decelerate and move over the foot. The transition of pressure and movements in the foot will be captured in the pressure map and gaitline. This phase will also acknowledge if the customer is pronating or supinating.
Toe-off: this is the final moment that the foot is in contact with the ground. This can provide information about which part of the foot is used to push off the ground. For walking it is important to pay attention if the customer is using their big toe during toe-off.
Down below you can see four different types of footstrike.
Footstrike 1: Rear footstrike. The heel lands first, with the foot rolling through to the forefoot. This is the most common footstrike pattern.
Footstrike 2: Midfoot strike 1. The strike is at the lateral midfoot. Next, the foot moves towards the toes.
Footstrike 3. Midfoot strike 2. The strike is at the outside of the forefoot. Next, the foot flattens and both forefoot and heel are on the ground, before moving towards the toes.
Footstrike 4. Forefoot strike. The strike is at the outside of the forefoot and moves towards the toes. The heel does not contact the ground at all.
Finished the article? Have a look at our walking mode video on ARION ACADEMY where our Biomechanics lead Lissa explains how to read a footstrike.