Gait Analysis For Runners: Is It Time We Accept It's Really Not That Useful?

By Matt Phillips

Ten years ago I was invited to present at Therapy Expo, a two-day educational event for healthcare professionals in the UK. I recall taking great delight in informing my audience that most of what they thought they knew about Running Gait Analysis was actually rubbish. Maybe I’m being hard on myself…I never used the word ‘rubbish’ and I certainly never named and shamed anyone, but I do worry sometimes whether my revelations a decade ago caused any ‘non-evidence based’ MSK practitioners to throw the towel in and change career.

You see, back then I had SO much to say. So many myths to bust and so little time. I’d been working in a multidisciplinary clinic for around two years in one of the first Gait Analysis Labs on the South Coast of England. It was an amazing set up, with a Sprintex Treadmill, 2D Contemplas Video Analysis Software (later upgraded to 3D MotionMetrix), and me on Twitter devouring anything and everything ‘evidence-informed’ that I could find in 140 characters.