Compensations for increased rotational inertia during human cutting turns

Locomotion in a complex environment is often not steady state, but unsteady locomotion (stability and maneuverability) is not well understood. We investigated the strategies used by humans to perform sidestep cutting turns when running. Previous studies have argued that because humans have small yaw rotational moments of inertia relative to body mass, deceleratory forces in the initial velocity direction that occur during the turning step, or ‘braking’ forces, could function to prevent body over-rotation during turns. We tested this hypothesis by increasing body rotational inertia and testing whether braking forces during stance decreased. We recorded ground reaction force and body kinematics from seven participants performing 45 deg sidestep cutting turns and straight running at five levels of body rotational inertia, with increases up to fourfold. Contrary to our prediction, braking forces remained consistent at different rotational inertias, facilitated by anticipatory changes to body rotational speed. Increasing inertia revealed that the opposing effects of several turning parameters, including rotation due to symmetrical anterior–posterior forces, result in a system that can compensate for fourfold changes in rotational inertia with less than 50% changes to rotational velocity. These results suggest that in submaximal effort turning, legged systems may be robust to changes in morphological parameters, and that compensations can involve relatively minor adjustments between steps to change initial stance conditions.