Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, United States of America.
Institute for Medical Engineering & Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2018 Jun 13;13(6):e0198875. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0198875. eCollection 2018.
In vehicle dynamics, it is commonly understood that there is an inverse relationship between stability and maneuverability. However, animal studies have found that stability and maneuverability can coincide. In this study, we examine humans running a reactive agility obstacle and consider the relationship between observational perceived agility and balance, as well as the relationship between quantified surrogates of agility and balance. Recreational athletes (n = 18) completed the agility task while wearing inertial measurement units (IMUs) on their body. The task was also video-recorded. An observational study was completed by a separate group of adults (n = 33) that were asked to view the videos and score each athlete on a Likert scale for balance and for agility. The data from the body-worn IMUs were used to estimate quantified surrogate measures for agility and balance, and to assess if the relationship between the quantified agility and balance was in the same direction as the perceived relationship from the Likert scale responses. Results indicate that athletes that were given a higher Likert agility score were also given a higher balance score (rs = 0.75,p < 0.001). Quantitative surrogates of agility and balance also showed this same relationship. Additional insights on technique for this reactive agility task were informed by the quantitative surrogates. We observed the importance of stepping technique in achieving the faster completion times. The fast performing athletes spent a greater proportion of the task in double support and lower overall time in single support indicating increased periods of static stability. The fast performing athletes did not have a higher body speed, but performed the task with a more efficient technique, using foot placement to enable heading changes, and thus may have had a more efficient path. Similar to animal studies, people use technique to enable agile strategies while also enabling increased balance across the task.
在车辆动力学中，通常认为稳定性和机动性之间存在反比关系。然而，动物研究发现稳定性和机动性可以同时存在。在这项研究中，我们研究了人类在反应性敏捷性障碍物上的奔跑，并考虑了观察到的感知敏捷性与平衡之间的关系，以及敏捷性和平衡的量化替代指标之间的关系。 18 名娱乐运动员在身上佩戴惯性测量单元（IMU）的情况下完成了敏捷任务。该任务还进行了视频记录。另一组 33 名成年人完成了观察性研究，他们被要求观看视频并对每位运动员的平衡和敏捷性进行李克特量表评分。身体佩戴的 IMU 数据用于估计敏捷性和平衡的量化替代指标，并评估量化敏捷性和平衡之间的关系是否与李克特量表响应所表示的感知关系一致。结果表明，获得更高李克特敏捷得分的运动员也获得了更高的平衡得分（rs = 0.75，p <0.001）。敏捷性和平衡的定量替代指标也显示出这种相同的关系。定量替代指标为这种反应性敏捷性任务提供了更多的技术见解。我们观察到了在实现更快完成时间方面的重要性。完成速度较快的运动员在双支撑阶段花费的时间比例更大，单支撑阶段的总时间更短，这表明静态稳定性增加了。完成速度较快的运动员的身体速度并不高，但他们以更有效的技术完成了任务，利用脚部放置来实现转向，因此可能具有更有效的路径。与动物研究类似，人类使用技术来实现敏捷策略，同时在整个任务中提高平衡能力。
