INTRODUCTION

The movement we have studied is the gait or walking motion of a male versus a female in high heeled shoes. It is an established norm in our modern culture that women wear high heeled shoes while men do not. Up until the 18th century men and women both wore this style of shoe (Linder and Saltzman, 1998). It is interesting to wonder if the fact that men now do not wear high heels might be due to some type of biomechanical difference between the genders which makes wearing high heeled shoes undesirable for them.

The purpose of our study was to infer with the use of biomechanics whether wearing high heels had a more negative effect on males or females at the ankle joint, hip joint, and torso segment. Using kinematics, we will determine how high heels affect the range of motion and trunk inclination in men and women.