An investigation into plantar pressure measurement protocols for footwear research

Many researchers investigate how footwear design affects plantar pressure (PP) and ask participants to walk in unfamiliar footwear as part of their studies. However, there are no clear guidelines for the required period of time or number of steps a healthy participant requires to acclimatise to unfamiliar footwear. Nor are there clear guidelines for how many steps should be collected to produce data that is representative of gait in each particular shoe being tested. There were therefore two aims to this study: (1) to investigate the number of steps required to produce an average step that is representative of normal gait; (2) to investigate the number of steps required for a participant to acclimatise to a range of footwear types. PP data were collected in 20 healthy participants whilst they walked for 400 m in a range of footwear. The results showed that the number of steps required for both acclimatisation and to ensure data quality are dependent on shoe type and the foot region being investigated. It is recommended that 30 steps from one foot are collected during data collection and an acclimatisation period of at least 166 steps is given for each shoe condition. The former recommendation is not met by most studies in the literature.