Video Gait Analysis

Whilst it is easy to observe running styles in other people, it is often very hard to appreciate how we are moving ourselves. High speed video analysis allows us to look frame by frame at your walking and running movement patterns, and to marry what we see with the aches and pains you may have associated with these weight bearing activities.

What is video gait analysis?

Video gait analysis is a frame by frame recording of the way you walk and run. A physiotherapist slows the footage down to see how your feet, knees, hips and trunk are moving, then sets what the video shows against the symptoms you came in with.

Many problems in the lower limbs, and even in the pelvis and lower back, are associated with the way we walk and run. That is true of many of the problems we see in runners, including runner's knee, Achilles tendon pain and shin splints.

Why does the way you run matter?

Think of your body like a machine. Like the moving parts of any machine they tend to wear out eventually, but they do so more quickly if they are moving badly.

Running injuries are common. Around 40% of runners sustain a running-related injury¹. How you move is one factor among several, and training load is among the factors most consistently identified², as our article on the common mistakes causing injury in runners sets out. No assessment can prevent injury. What a gait analysis can do is identify the movement patterns, strength deficits and restrictions that may be adding to your injury risk or holding your efficiency back, so that you and your physiotherapist can work on them and track whether they improve. Our patients often report big improvements in their PBs when they return to running after treatment.

Why does interpretation matter more than the footage?

Slow motion footage is easy to produce. The real skill is in interpreting that information and relating it to your clinical problems: what you have injured before, how much you are running, what your strength and movement testing shows, and what you are trying to get back to.

Generic advice is enough for some people, and a running shop is a good place to try shoes on. It is a different thing from having your movement read against your clinical history by someone who has examined you. For something this important, and particularly if the same injury keeps returning, it is worth getting an expert opinion.

What happens after a gait analysis?

We do not set out to push every runner towards one ideal running style. There is no single correct way to run, and two runners with the same knee pain can need quite different things.

What the video does is show us where load is going and where movement is breaking down. Physiotherapy and rehabilitation can then address what the assessment finds: the strength, control and technique work that changes how you load the tissue that is hurting, alongside sensible adjustments to your training. Some runners also use orthotics or a change of footwear as part of that picture, and footwear advice is worth taking from someone who has watched you move and knows your history.

Our Running Assessment & Gait Analysis, part of the Sheffield Running Clinic, puts the video alongside a strength, movement and training review. Where strength is the limiting factor, our strength and conditioning class for runners picks up from there.

Book an appointment

This article is general information and not a substitute for individual assessment. If walking or running is causing you pain, book an appointment online or call 0114 230 2030 to speak to the physiotherapy team.

References

1. Kakouris N, Yener N, Fong DTP (2021), A systematic review of running-related musculoskeletal injuries in runners. Journal of Sport and Health Science, 10(5):513-522 - a systematic review of 42 studies covering more than 33,000 runners, which put the overall running-related injury incidence at 40.2%: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8500811/
2. Correia CK, Machado JM, Dominski FH, et al. (2024), Risk factors for running-related injuries: an umbrella systematic review. Journal of Sport and Health Science, 13(6):793-804 - an umbrella review of 13 systematic reviews covering 148 primary studies, which found running and training characteristics among the risk factors with the largest effect sizes: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11336318/