Qichang Mei

Ningbo University · Faculty of Sports Science

Current narrative review has explored known associations between foot shape, posture, and foot conditions during running. The arch index was found as a useful metric of foot posture but less useful in developing and obese individuals. Care shall be taken when using foot posture index to associate pronation with injury risk, and Achilles Tendon angl...

This study presents a database of joint angles, moments, and forces of the lower extremity from distance running at a submaximal speed in recreational runners. Twenty recreational runners participated in two experimental sessions, specifically pre and post a 5k treadmill run, with a synchronous collection of markers trajectories and ground reaction...

There are still few portable methods for monitoring lower limb joint coordination during the cut-ting movements (CM). This study aims to obtain the relevant motion biomechanical parameters of the lower limb joints at 90°, 135°, and 180° CM by collecting IMU data of the human lower limbs, and utilizing the Long Short Term Memory (LSTM) deep neural n...

In this study, we developed a musculoskeletal-driven FE model to understand the impact loading and stress response in the tibia and fibula across incremental walking and running (sprinting) speeds. Findings may integrate with IMU signals and machine learning models to record, monitor and predict the load accumulation in the shank during prolonged r...

With the progress and innovation of table tennis technology, individualized training programs may deserve special attention. This study aimed to analyze elite table tennis athletes in chasse-step, with a particular focus on sex-based biomechanical differences. A total of 36 (18 males and 18 females) elite table tennis athletes performed topspin for...

Independent ambulation is one of the most important motor skills in typically developing toddlers. Gait analysis is a key evaluation method in basic and clinical research. A narrative review on the literature of toddler gait development was conducted following inclusion criteria, explicitly including the factors of English article, age range, no ex...

Sensory processing disorder (SPD) could influence the neuromuscular response and adjustment to external sensory discrimination and lead to disruptions in daily locomotion. The objective of the current study was to compare plantar loadings and foot balance during walking, running and turning activities in SPD children in order to reveal the behavior...

Background: Hallux valgus (HV) is a foot deformity characterized by lateral deviation of the big toe and medial deviation of the first metatarsal. Research question: This study aimed to shed light on the treatment effects of different interventions and surgical procedures for HV deformity to determine the effectiveness of gait biomechanics correct...

The human being’s locomotion under the barefoot condition enables normal foot function and lower limb biomechanical performance from a biological evolution perspective. No study has demonstrated the specific differences between habitually barefoot and shod cohorts based on foot morphology and dynamic plantar pressure during walking and running. The...

Foot adaptation in the typically developed foot is well explored. In this study, we explore the form and function in an atypical foot, the Chinese Bound foot. We evaluate the foot shape and posture, gait plantar loading and bone density adaptation. The atypical foot with binding practice led to increased foot arch and vertically oriented calcaneus....

Hallux valgus is a foot pathological condition showing a lateral deviation of the first phalange and medial deviation of the first metatarsal. The purpose of the current study was to evaluate a longitudinal effect of minimalist footwear running protocol for a mild/moderate hallux valgus patient. The computer tomography (CT) images from a male hallu...

Maximal oxygen consumption (VO2max) reflects aerobic capacity and is crucial for assessing cardiorespiratory fitness and physical activity level. The purpose of the present study was to classify and predict the population-based cardiorespiratory fitness based on the anthropometric parameters, workload, and steady-state heart rate (HR) of the submax...

Background: Females with different practice experience may show different body postures and movement patterns while squatting in different depths, which may lead to changes of biomechanical loadings and increase the risks of injuries. Methods: Sixteen novice female participants without squat training experience participated in this study. A 3D m...

Objective: This study is aimed to analyse the difference in the ground reaction force between male and female runners and left versus right limbs using the one-dimensional Statistical Parametric Mapping. Methods: Thirty male and female runners participated the running test on the Bertec force treadmill at a speed of 12 km/h (3.3m/s). Ground reacti...

An empirical consensus of differences between chronic ankle instability (CAI) individuals and copers (individuals who sprained ankle once and without recurrent symptoms or injury) has not been reported. This study aimed to review the locomotion biomechanics and dynamic postural control between these two populations. Database of ScienceDirect, PubMe...

Anterior knee pain is a commonly documented musculoskeletal disorder among badminton players. However, current biomechanical studies of badminton lunges mainly report kinetic profiles in the lower extremity with few investigations of in-vivo loadings. The objective of this study was to evaluate tissue loadings in the patellofemoral joint via muscul...

Ground reaction force (GRF) is a key metrics in biomechanical research, including parameters of loading rate (LR), 1st impact peak, 2nd impact peak, and transient between 1st and 2nd impact peaks in heel strike runners. The GRFs vary over time during stance. This study was aimed to investigate the variances of GRFs in rearfoot striking runners acro...

Barefoot running has been associated with lowered joint loading, but it remains unclear whether the biomechanical benefits are evident after mid-distance running. A musculoskeletal model was adopted for estimating lower limb joint loading for barefoot (n = 10) versus shod (n = 10) 5 km running. The barefoot group reduced peak joint reaction force a...

The purpose of this study was to investigate the symmetry or asymmetry in the plantar pressure, foot axis angle and muscle mass of dominant and non-dominant legs. Sixty-eight able-bodied participants (age: 20±1 years, height: 162±8 cm, mass: 53±7 kg, BMI: 20.63±2 kg/m2) were recruited for the walking and running tests. All participants with right d...

This study presents population-based multivariate regression models for predicting foot plantar pressure from easily measured foot metrics in both shod and barefoot populations for running and walking tasks. Both shod and barefoot models were trained on 50 participants and predicted plantar pressure from anthropometric measurements using a ‘leave-o...

The purpose of this study was to explore if the tri-axial linear acceleration and angular velocity of knee and ankle joints differ between barefoot and minimal footwear running through investigating the extreme value difference. Eight participants were recruited for this experiment, acceleration parameters were measured utilizing IMU sensors. For t...

With the rapid development of disabled sports and the assistance of science and technology, this article systematically reviewed the biomechanical research of disabled sports in recent years and clarified the latest developments in sport biomechanics methods in improving disabled sports performance. Current studies focus on the following four aspec...

Populations of different ethnicities may present different movement capacities and muscular function adaptations. The purpose of this study was to investigate the differences of motion and loading in the lower extremity during dynamic deep squats between Asian and Caucasian individuals using OpenSim modelling technique with a customized squat-speci...

The purpose of this study was to compare the inter-limb joint kinematics, joint moments, muscle forces, and joint reaction forces in patients after an Achilles tendon rupture (ATR) via subject-specific musculoskeletal modeling. Six patients recovering from a surgically repaired unilateral ATR were included in this study. The bilateral Achilles tend...

aimed to evaluate the differences in plantar loading between experienced long-distance runners and novice runners during walking. The hypotheses were that smaller load in the middle of the forefoot and the stable foot balance would be observed in experienced runners during walking. Methods: Twenty-five participants were recruited as the experienc...

The aim of this study was to examine whether there are kinematic and kinetic differences in the lower limb and whether the symmetry of the lower extremities is different after prolonged-running. Fifteen healthy male amateur runners (age: 22 ± 1 years, height: 173 ± 8 cm, mass: 65 ± 7 kg, BMI: 21.62 ± 2 kg/m 2) were recruited as participants for thi...

Human toes are crucial for the vertical jumping performance. The purpose of this study is to investigate the acute effect of hallux abduction manipulation on the foot inter-segment kinematic alterations and plantar loading redistribution during the countermovement jump (CMJ). Thirteen participants were recruited to join in this experiment, for the...

Objective: It was aimed to reveal the foot shape variations in three dimension via the 3D statistical shape modelling. Methods: Fifty feet of normal Chinese young males were used build the statistical shape model. Steps, including mesh registration of foot surface, axis alignment and principal component analysis (dimension reduction), were performe...

This study aimed to investigate how elite Chinese gymnasts manage the landing impact from a backward somersault. Six international-level male gymnasts performed backward somersault tests with a synchronous collection of kinematics (250 Hz), ground reaction forces (1,000 Hz), and surface electromyography (EMG) (2,000 Hz). A 19-segment human model wa...

Objective: To reveal the changes of loads in the lower extremity, foot postures and knee contact force and validate their correlations after long-distance running in runners, aiming to provide easily-measured parameters for rapid prediction of loads on knees. Methods: OpenSim subject-specific modelling was used to analyse lower extremity joint angl...

Barefoot and shod running has received increased attention in recent years, however, the influence of morphology-related foot function has not been explored. This study aimed to investigate morphology-related jumping and running biomechanical functions in habitually barefoot and shod males. A total of 90 barefoot males (Indians) and 130 shod males...

This study presents an investigation of the changes in foot posture, joint kinematics, joint moments and joint contact forces in the lower extremity following a 5k treadmill run. A relationship between knee and ankle joint loading and foot posture index (FPI) is developed. Twenty recreational male heel-strike runners participated in this study. All...

Purpose: Functional footwear with different unstable profiles has been widely used to mimic barefoot condition and offload plantar loading for pathological or injury prevention. However, little research investigates the effect of unstable structure on particular foot functions. In this study, a prototype of unstable shoe design with unstable eleme...

Traditional biomechanical analysis and research have been extensively applied into the research of medical engineering. Due to the open-source of OpenSim modelling, it has developed rapidly and been widely utilized. This paper reviewed studies of image-based subject-specific OpenSim Musculoskeletal Modelling to lower extremity biomechanics between...

Human foot serves as an initial interface of internal kinetic chains, which exposes to external surroundings. Changes of foot structure or morphology are closely linked with foot functions. This paper reviewed and summarized characteristics of foot morphology, kinematics, kinetics and muscle activity from immediate and short-term barefoot intervent...

This study investigated differences of lower limb kinematics and muscle activity during table tennis topspin loop against backspin movements between elite players (EPs) and amateur players (APs). Ten EPs and ten APs performed crosscourt backhand loop movements against the backspin ball with maximal power. Vicon motion analysis and a MEGA ME6000 sys...

Background Normative foot kinematic and kinetic data with different walking speeds will benefit rehabilitation programs and improving gait performance. The purpose of this study was to analyze foot kinematics and kinetics differences between slow walking (SW), normal walking (NW) and fast walking (FW) of healthy subjects. Methods A total of 10 hea...

Raw data exported from the temporal-spatial parameters during three walking speeds applied for data analyses and preparation for the detailed investigation shown Table 2.

Raw data exported from the foot inter-segment joint angles between three different walking speeds during stance phase of one gait cycle applied for data analyses and preparation for the detailed investigation.

Raw data exported from the ground reaction forces (GRFs) and joint moments in the sagittal plane and frontal plane of knee and ankle joints applied for data analyses and preparation for the detailed investigation.

The study aimed to investigate the differences in lower limb joint angles during running with three different sports shoes: basketball shoes, football shoes, and running shoes. Fifteen male subjects (age: 25 ± 2.2 years, height: 1.79 ± 0.05 m, and mass: 70.8 ± 3.4 kg) were asked to run on a treadmill at their preferred running speed. The Vicon 3D m...

Objective The purpose of this study was to determine the differences in technical characteristics between top-elite and sub-elite male weightlifters performing the snatch style in the 69-kg category. The obtained results can provide valuable information for lower level lifters and coaches to achieve better competition performance by altering their...

Purpose: Prolonged running has been popularized globally in recent decades. This study was aimed to reveal information about foot morphology, shoe comfort and plantar loading among recreational heel-strike runners. Methods: Twenty-six runners participated in foot morphology, perceived scores and peak pressure tests after 10- and 20-km track runn...

Physique changes during pregnancy lead to gait characteristic variations. This study aimed to analyse gait of pregnant individuals throughout pregnancy and post-partum. Sixteen healthy pregnant women volunteered as participants and had their lower limb kinematics analysed through a VICON three-dimensional motion system and plantar pressure measured...

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of different outsole hardness of turf cleats shoes on the lower limb kinematics and kinetics of soccer players playing on artificial turf. The participants were required to complete tasks of straight running and 45° left sidestep cutting movements, respectively, at the speed of 4.5 ± 0.2 m/s o...

The purpose of this study was to testing for difference in performance and injury risks between three different outsole configuration soccer shoes on natural turf. A total of 14 experienced soccer players participated in the tests. Participants were asked to complete tasks of straightahead running and 45° left sidestep cutting respectively at the s...

Backward walking (BW), an emerging rehabilitative and training modality, was integrated with unstable sole construction with various hardness levels to analyze the kinematic and kinetic characteristics of the lower extremities. Eighteen participants volunteered to participate in the test. They performed walking tests under three conditions: (1) BW...

The authors aimed to investigate female balance or stability control with comparative analysis of the center of pressure trajectory and plantar pressure distribution with different high-heeled shoes while standing on a dynamic surface with multidirectional perturbations. College females with at least 2 years’ history of wearing high-heel shoes volu...

The authors aimed to investigate female balance or stability control with comparative analysis of the center of pressure trajectory and plantar pressure distribution with different high-heeled shoes while standing on a dynamic surface with multidirectional perturbations. College females with at least 2 years’ history of wearing high-heel shoes volu...

Pregnancy has been a critical stage for most females. Daily locomotion during this specific period was altered owing to the weight gain from fetus. The objective of this study was to illustrate the plantar loading distribution characteristics of pregnant women in different trimester through comparative analysis with non-pregnant women. Thirty-six p...

This study presents the kinematics and plantar pressure characteristics of eight elite national-level badminton athletes and eight recreational college-level badminton players while performing a rightforward lunge movement in a laboratory-simulated badminton court. The hypothesis was that recreational players would be significantly different from e...

With the increasing popularity of barefoot running, the difference of foot morphology between habitually unshod runners and shod runners is becoming one concern leading to running injuries. The purpose of this study was to analyze the foot skeletal morphological characteristics between habitually unshod runner and shod runner through inverse modell...

Foot morphology and function has received increasing attention from both biomechanics researchers and footwear manufacturers. In this study, 168 habitually unshod runners (90 males whose age, weight & height were 23±2.4years, 66±7.1kg & 1.68±0.13m and 78 females whose age, weight & height were 22±1.8years, 55±4.7kg & 1.6±0.11m) (Indians) and 196 sh...

Purpose: Osteoarthritis of the knee is one of the most common diseases. For this chronic disease, modified footwear structure can effectively prevent and relieve disease of the knee. The aim of this study was to explore the effects of shoe surface elastic modulus on external knee adduction moment and ground reaction force and foot loading characte...