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Background: Individuals may exhibit altered foot pronation during gait when fatigue sets in. Therefore, a more evidence-based understanding of these fatigue-induced changes may be helpful for future gait analysis and return-to-play tests since fatigue can provide new insights that might explain a person’s complaints. Methods: A total of 25 healthy individuals (12♂, 13♀; 24.3 ± 2.7 years; 174.9 ± 9.09 cm; 70 ± 14.2 kg; BMI: 22.7 ± 2.8) participated in this controlled non-randomized study of unilateral fatigue of the right foot’s stabilizing muscles with regard to the pronation of the foot, measured by navicular drop (ND) in static (statND; standing) and dynamic (dynND; walking) states. The left foot served as the control. Surface electromyography was used to verify fatigue. Results: While the statND did not change, the dynND increased significantly by 1.44 ± 2.1 mm (=22.3%) after the foot-stabilizing muscles experienced fatigue. No correlation was found between the statND and dynND. Conclusions: Muscular fatigue can affect foot pronation. The dynND appears to be more representative of the loads in everyday life, whereby most studies use the statND.
Becker et al. (2024) studied this question.