Knee abduction angular impulses during prolonged running with wedged insoles

Wedged insoles may produce immediate effects on knee abduction angular impulses during running; however, it is currently not known whether these knee abduction angular impulse magnitudes are maintained throughout a run when fatigue sets in. If changes occur, this could affect the clinical utility of wedged insoles in treating conditions such as patellofemoral pain. Thus, the purpose of this study was to determine whether knee abduction angular impulses are altered during a prolonged run with wedged insoles. It was hypothesized that knee abduction angular impulses would be reduced following a prolonged run with wedged insoles. Nine healthy runners participated. Runners were randomly assigned to either a 6-mm medial wedge condition or a 6-mm lateral wedge condition and then ran continuously overground for 30 min. Knee abduction angular impulses were quantified at 0 and 30 min using a gait analysis procedure. After 2 days, participants returned to perform the same test but with the other wedge type. Two-way repeated-measures analysis of variance was used to evaluate main effects of wedge condition and time and interactions between wedge condition and time (α = 0.05). Paired t-tests were used for post hoc analysis (α = 0.01). No interaction effects (p = 0.958) were found, and knee abduction angular impulses were not significantly different over time (p = 0.384). Lateral wedge conditions produced lesser knee abduction angular impulses than medial conditions at 0 min (difference of 2.79 N m s, p = 0.006) and at 30 min (difference of 2.76 N m s, p < 0.001). It is concluded that significant knee abduction angular impulse changes within wedge conditions do not occur during a 30-min run. Additionally, knee abduction angular impulse differences between wedge conditions are maintained during a 30-min run.