Joint power and kinematics coordination in load carriage running: Implications for performance and injury

•Load carriage altered inter-joint power coordination during running.•Load carriage altered three-dimensional kinematics in running.•The effect of load magnitude on running mechanics depended on velocity.•Mechanical responses to load carriage may be used to guide future interventions.

Investigating the impact of incremental load magnitude on running joint power and kinematics is important for understanding the energy cost burden and potential injury-causative mechanisms associated with load carriage. It was hypothesized that incremental load magnitude would result in phase-specific, joint power and kinematic changes within the stance phase of running, and that these relationships would vary at different running velocities. Thirty-one participants performed running while carrying three load magnitudes (0%, 10%, 20% body weight), at three velocities (3, 4, 5 m/s). Lower limb trajectories and ground reaction forces were captured, and global optimization was used to derive the variables. The relationships between load magnitude and joint power and angle vectors, at each running velocity, were analyzed using Statistical Parametric Mapping Canonical Correlation Analysis. Incremental load magnitude was positively correlated to joint power in the second half of stance. Increasing load magnitude was also positively correlated with alterations in three dimensional ankle angles during mid-stance (4.0 and 5.0 m/s), knee angles at mid-stance (at 5.0 m/s), and hip angles during toe-off (at all velocities). Post hoc analyses indicated that at faster running velocities (4.0 and 5.0 m/s), increasing load magnitude appeared to alter power contribution in a distal-to-proximal (ankle → hip) joint sequence from mid-stance to toe-off. In addition, kinematic changes due to increasing load influenced both sagittal and non-sagittal plane lower limb joint angles. This study provides a list of plausible factors that may influence running energy cost and injury risk during load carriage running.