Soft tissue work in early stance of human walking: partitioning foot vs. rest-of-body contributions

Soft tissues throughout the human body are known to perform negative work (i.e., energy absorption) through wobbling and deforming, particularly following foot impacts with the ground (e.g., in walking). But it is not known which tissues/locations in the body are responsible for most of this soft tissue work. The purpose of this study was to quantify how much of the soft tissue work after foot contact was due to the foot and shoe, vs. from tissues elsewhere in the body, and how this distribution of work changed with walking speed and slope. We found that 60-70% of the soft tissue work in early stance during level and uphill walking was due to the foot and shoe, and this rose to 80-90% during downhill walking.