Lacoste: Quantification of Foot Kinematics Within Tennis Footwear Using Movement Coupling

preventing relative foot-to-shoe movement that can lead to injuries, blisters, and discomfort. Understanding how the foot moves inside the shoe is crucial for footwear design and injury prevention.

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Traditionally, researchers have measured foot movement inside shoes using optical motion capture, the industry "gold standard." However, this method requires cutting large windows into the shoe to access anatomical landmarks on the skin, which compromises the shoe's structural integrity and its ability to lock down the foot during movement (see Figures 1a & 1b). This creates a significant limitation: the very act of measuring foot kinematics alters the shoe's performance.

This challenge highlights the need for minimally invasive technologies that can measure foot movement without modifying the footwear. Movement coupling—the coordinated motion between connected body parts—offers a potential solution. By analyzing how the tibia and foot move together during tennis-specific motions, particularly through inversion and eversion movements, we may be able to assess foot kinematics non-invasively. This is especially relevant given that ankle sprains account for 20-25% of all tennis injuries, with approximately 85% caused by inversion trauma.

Project Objective: Determine whether movement coupling between the tibia and foot can accurately measure foot inversion and eversion in tennis shoes without compromising footwear integrity.

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The results of this project help Lacoste evaluate if there is any merit to this particular measurement technique thereby helping them design better tennis shoes and better understand the foot kinematics going on inside of their footwear. To learn more about my methodology, data analysis method, predictive model, and results, please view the poster below.