Identification of subject-specific responses to footwear during running

Placing a stronger focus on subject-specific responses to footwear may lead to a better functional understanding of footwear’s effect on running and its influence on comfort perception, performance, and pathogenesis of injuries. We investigated subject-specific responses to different footwear conditions within ground reaction force (GRF) data during running using a machine learning-based approach. We conducted our investigation in three steps, guided by the following hypotheses: (I) For each subject x footwear combination, unique GRF patterns can be identified. (II) For each subject, unique GRF characteristics can be identified across footwear conditions. (III) For each footwear condition, unique GRF characteristics can be identified across subjects. Thirty male subjects ran ten times at their preferred (self-selected) speed on a level and approximately 15 m long runway in four footwear conditions (barefoot and three standardised running shoes). We recorded three-dimensional GRFs for one right-foot stance phase per running trial and classified the GRFs using support vector machines. The highest median prediction accuracy of 96.2% was found for the subject x footwear classification (hypothesis I). Across footwear conditions, subjects could be discriminated with a median prediction accuracy of 80.0%. Across subjects, footwear conditions could be discriminated with a median prediction accuracy of 87.8%. Our results suggest that, during running, responses to footwear are unique to each subject and footwear design. As a result, considering subject-specific responses can contribute to a more differentiated functional understanding of footwear effects. Incorporating holistic analyses of biomechanical data is auspicious for the evaluation of (subject-specific) footwear effects, as unique interactions between subjects and footwear manifest in versatile ways. The applied machine learning methods have demonstrated their great potential to fathom subject-specific responses when evaluating and recommending footwear.