If we have a penny for every time weve heard this we’d be able to retire early! As you’ve probably guessed from my tongue-in-cheek humour, they are not the same thing.
So, what’s the difference between shoe shop gait analysis and 3D Clinical gait analysis?
Shoe shop gait analysis uses a one-dimensional opinion (guess) about what the shoe shop sales person is trained to look for. These are, “does the shoes deform under pressure leading to “over pronation” or does it remain in a “neutral” position? Inferences are then made based on this and (for good reason) no advice is provided about what the future customer should do to help themselves stay injury free. This is because both are way too simplistic to make judgements on the rest of the body and most importantly there is no evidence to say that these factors are actually happening at all!
“In all the years I’ve been doing gait analysis I have never even looked at a runner’s shoe compression. This is because It’s not the shoe compressing which then creates injury, it’s the complex body moments over time which does”
3D Clinical Gait Analysis
We use 3D gait analysis to perform the most scientific scan of your body in real time whilst doing the movement that eventually lead to pain and injury. Its like an MRI for walking and running. You may have seen our social media posts educating the public about this powerful technology. It provides evidence-based information on the runner’s unique gait which is then used with a data driven clinical musculoskeletal assessment to give you a report with where you are strong, where you could gain flexibility and where you need to focus your energy. This all comes together to give you an evidence-based treatment plan to get you away from recurring injury to getting you back to doing what you love to do, fast!
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Stay healthy,
Aengus.