Our reflexes, qualities of the tensile fabric of our connective tissue matrix, muscle strength, and conceptual framework influence how we move. Our characteristics of movement can be captured with Inertial Measurement Units (IMU) in the three spatial dimensions over time. These frequencies of acceleration, sorted by dominance and evaluated by their magnitude, provide a window into how dynamically we move.
The table below shows the absolute value of the mean of all frequencies of acceleration in the three spatial dimensions to two types of gait, one with a strong heel strike and one where bodyweight is carried by the ball of the foot. When our body weight is carried by the ball of the foot the lower leg is engaged, which contains perhaps 50% of the motor functions of the leg.
This graph plots the acceleration magnitude by frequency for these two datasets (the three dimensions combined). Note that most of the energy is in the foot strike where subtle variations are masked by the magnitude (~1.35hz or 0.7 seconds). A cutoff in magnitude at ~12 teases out the variations between the two datasets that show up in the above table.
This data was captured at the top of the Sternum (Manubrium) which is considered centrally located to all three spatial dimensions for movement. For reference, the raw acceleration data is presented below for a strong heel strike gait. (each unit on the X-axis is 20 msec.)
