Today I read a published paper entitled “Fractal Fluctuations in Human Walking: Comparison between Auditory and Visually Guided Stepping”
I have no idea what I am going to do with this knowledge. However, it has given me an idea for two pieces of augmented reality exercise equipment that could be used to motivate people to work out more.
A punching bag with AR projection that designates targets to hit, rapid punches to throw, etc.
An AR treadmill that can project where you should put your foot and coupled with gait analysis, can predict your overall cardio fitness and making estimates of how fast you could run a marathon.
The abstract is:
In human locomotion, sensorimotor synchronization of gait consists of the coordination of stepping with rhythmic auditory cues (auditory cueing, AC). AC changes the long-range correlations among consecutive strides (fractal dynamics) into anti-correlations. Visual cueing (VC) is the alignment of step lengths with marks on the floor. The effects of VC on the fluctuation structure of walking have not been investigated. Therefore, the objective was to compare the effects of AC and VC on the fluctuation pattern of basic spatiotemporal gait parameters. Thirty-six healthy individuals walked 3 x 500 strides on an instrumented treadmill with augmented reality capabilities. The conditions were no cueing (NC), AC, and VC. AC included an isochronous metronome. In VC, projected stepping stones were synchronized with the treadmill speed. Detrended fluctuation analysis assessed the correlation structure. The coefficient of variation (CV) was also assessed. The results showed that AC and VC similarly induced a strong anti-correlated pattern in the gait parameters. The CVs were similar between the NC and AC conditions but substantially higher in the VC condition. AC and VC probably mobilize similar motor control pathways and can be used alternatively in gait rehabilitation. However, the increased gait variability induced by VC should be considered.