Modulation of stiffness on impact loadings during running

Tibial stress fractures are one of the most common injuries that runners sustain. Studies have demonstrated that tibial stress fractures are related to loading parameters, such as peak tibial shock (TS), average (VALR), and instantaneous loading rates (VILR) of the vertical ground reaction force (GRF) [1,2]. It has also been shown that these loading parameters can be reduced through a gait retraining program using real-time biomechanical feedback [3]. Through retraining, runners were able to reduce their tibial shock by approximately 50%, using a number of ankle and knee adaptive strategies [4]. However, there is likely some commonality among all of the strategies that resulted in reduced TS and loading rates.