What is Video Gait Analysis and Why Do We Do It?

Video Gait analysis is the process of recording a slow motion video of someone walking or running. We do this because it gives us crucial information about how somebody moves. Often times we will have clients tell us that they have pain while walking or running, but that when they have gone to seek help for these issues, that nobody has investigated the way they do these activities. The answer to these movement issues almost always stems from how we do these basic activities. Even in cases where pain is not present, it makes sense to optimize these functions and getting a baseline starting point is really important.

Importance of Gait Mechanics

For some reason it’s normal not to prioritize this type of assessment within the health and fitness industry. We are more focused one measures like weight, bodyfat percentage, or strength in terms of how much weight can be lifted during an exercise. However, walking and running are are so fundamental to what it means to be human, that assessing these should be the logical starting point when assessing for not only pain but functionality as well.

We tend to understand the importance of good gait mechanics in some scenarios but not in others. For example, thoroughbred horses will be bought for millions based on how they walk around a parade ring. Show dogs compete and are graded based on how their movement and ability stack up against each other.

A Baseline Starting Point

Imagine preparing to start a new diet in order to lose weight, but having no idea what your starting weight is, or no way of monitoring your weight throughout the process? If an exercise regime is to help improve your health and movement in an objective way, we need a key data point to work from. For us, this key piece of data is the way somebody walks and runs. We measure this in our initial meeting and continuously throughout the training process to see the impact of our training. It allows us to make adjustments as needed, and make sure that we are doing everything we can to get to the root issue.