COMPARISON OF THE STANCE PHASE DURING NORDIC WALKING WITH DIFFERENT GROUNDINGS

In recent years, lack of exercise has been a problem in the modern people of lifestyle, predisposes people to Lifestyle-related diseases such as obesity, coronary artery diseases as so on. In Japan, the aging society, the extension of healthy life expectancy due to the extension of the average life span has become a social problem. Especially walking is one of easiest exercise in daily life. Research report that leads to a reduction of falls risk is also there. Furthermore, walking using pole is in a relationship of increasing the reduction in the risk of falls increased stability. Exercise by performing, muscle-skeletal system is maintained and made in the prevention of Locomotive syndrome. The purpose of study was to investigate the stance phase muscle activity and ground reaction force how to effect between different support pole touch down. Subjects were healthy five male (mean age 22.5±1.16 years; height 168.8±5.49cm; body weight 70.6±14.97kg). In all subject, this experiment was performed walk for about three meters as setting of experimental. The measurements ground reaction force(GRF) and muscle activity used by the force plate (Kistler, 9286BA) and surface Electromyogram(EMG) (ME5000, Nihonkoden), respectively. There were 8 parts of surface EMG below: Rectus femoris muscle (RF), biceps femoris muscle (BF), gastrocnemius muscle (LGAS), soleus muscle (SOL), Tibialis Anterior (TA), biceps brachii(BB),triceps brachii(TB) and trapezius (TP). All signals were collected of 1000Hz sampleing. They were performed on 3 gait patterns when normal walking and using walking poles with two different pole groundings. Using walking poles with two different pole groundings were body side grounding pattern (the subjects placed the poles of the opposite side with the foot in stance phase) and body forward both groundings (the subjects placed both poles with the right foot). They were recorded from 5 trials for each walking condition: normal walking, body side grounding pattern, body forward both support.EMGs and GRF were recorded from 5 trials for each walking condition: free walks, body side groundings pattern, and body forward both groundings pattern. All data was normalized to percentage of stance phase from 0 to 100% in each subject.Statistical processing used one way repeated measures of ANOVA (<0.05). The results of this study was showed that walking with the poles significant different decreased (P ≤ .05) in ground reaction force. Also it was showed reductions with pole walking in the lower limb EMGs in comparison with the free walk. The body forward both support pattern style resulted in a significantly greater increase of muscle activity of triceps brachii muscle compared with the free walk. Similarly major findings was that Nordic walking be able to walk less muscle activity than normal walking. Especially, using pole is consider that reduce the load of the knee and hip joint when it was applied both groundings forward style.