Effect of Speed and Experience on Kinetic and Kinematic Factors during Exercise on a Stair-Climbing Machine

Abstract

The purpose of this project was to explore the interaction between kinematic and kinetic factors and to investigate whether this relationship was affected by different speed conditions when subjects exercised on stair-climbing machines A secondary purpose was to determine if there were any differences in kinematic and kinetic factors between experienced and inexperienced subjects The kinematic parameters included hip angle, knee angle, and pedal angle The kinetic parameters were maximum force applied on the pedals, maximum force applied on the handrails, maximum hip moment, and maximum knee moment Data from a two-way (Speed × Experience) analysis of variance suggested that there were significant differences in maximum force applied on the pedal maximum force applied on the handrail and maximum hip moment across the speed and experience conditions. In all the testing conditions, using a stair-climbing machine had a smaller impact force on the feet than was found in a previous study that examined impact force for fast walking on a level surface.