In both stair climbing and Stairmaster movements, the subject began with her left leg fully extended and completed one full cycle ending with her leg in full extension again. The stair climbing motion took longer to complete one cycle (2.57 s) than the Stairmaster motion (2.15 s). The motions of the hip and knee involved two phases, flexion and extension. The relative time spent in flexion and extension phases was different for stair climbing and Stairmaster climbing. The flexion phase of the stair climbing motion took 0.83 seconds (33.2% of the total movement time) compared to 0.90 seconds for the Stairmaster climbing(41.9% of the total movement time). The extension phase of the stair climbing motion took 1.67 seconds (66.8% of total movement time) compared to 1.25 seconds (58.1% of the total movement time) for the Stairmaster climbing.
In both the Stairmaster and the stair climbing motions, the movement began with the subject flexing her fully extended leg until it reached maximum flexion. At the midway point, she began extending her leg until it reached maximum extension. Stair climbing included horizontal and vertical translation of the body where as Stairmaster body motion involved only vertical translation of the body. A swing phase only occurred during the stair climbing movement. The subject completed one cycle in the sagittal plane.
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Figure 2. Body motion in Stairmaster climbing (left) and stair climbing (right). The body segments included the trunk, thigh and shank. Arrows indicated the direction of the initial movement. The black squares represented the reference markers. For the Stairmaster climbing, the markers were placed directly on the Stairmaster with a distance of 0.66 meters between them. The markers for the stair climbing were placed on the wall behind the subject with a distance of 1.07 meters between them. | |
