INTRODUCTION

Our goal is to determine if there is any difference in trunk and/or leg angles between a person wearing normal running shoes as opposed to the same person wearing platform shoes with high heels. We find this interesting because we all are athletic women and like to wear fashionable shoes, which commonly include heels. It will be interesting to see if there is a difference in posture or leg movement between the two styles that may potentially harm an individual. There are many factors that affect running, for example traction and shock absorption of the shoes. Studies have found that high-heeled shoes, such as the shoes worn in our experiment, change the normal function of the ankle; to account for these changes, the hip and mainly the knee must compensate to maintain stability while running in high-heeled shoes (Kerrigan, D.C. et al, 1998).

We will be comparing an individual running in regular running shoes versus the same individual running in high-heeled platform shoes. Our purpose is to discover if there are differences between the two movements. We placed the camera at eye level from a side view of the individual to analyze the movement in the sagittal plane. The subject has joint markers placed upon specific joints to increase the visibility of her body segments. We predict that there will be a difference between the two running styles.