Kinematic and Kinetic Data of Treadmill, Overground and Outdoor Running

This open-source dataset provides running kinetic and kinematic data of 15 participants collected on a treadmill, in-lab overground, and outdoors. Kinetic measurements are 3D ground reaction forces from forceplates, kinematic are IMU measurements from the pelvis, thigh, shank, and foot. This data accompanies a scientific publication: Estimating braking and propulsion forces during overground running in and out of the lab Baker LM, Weigend FC, Swaminathan K, Kim D, Chin A, et al. (2025) Estimating braking and propulsion forces during overground running in and out of the lab. PLOS ONE 20(9): e0330042. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0330042 An excerpt of the paper's abstract outlines the motivation for this dataset: Accurately estimating kinetic metrics, such as braking and propulsion forces, in real-world running environments enhances our understanding of performance, fatigue, and injury. Wearable inertial measurement units (IMUs) offer a potential solution to estimate kinetic metrics outside the lab when combined with machine learning. However, current IMU-based kinetic estimation models are trained and evaluated within a single environment, often on lab treadmills. The transferability of these treadmill-trained models during overground running in and out of the lab is underexplored, and the individualization and validation of such models remain a challenge. Toward bridging this gap, we trained a generalized model on treadmill data of 15 recreational runners and evaluated braking and propulsion force estimates during overground running in and out of the lab. We explored fine-tuning with individual data from lab-based overground running to quantify model performance improvements with individualization. Data structure Settings On the highest level, the dataset is partitioned into four distinct settings: TM_FP Treadmill running with force plates OG_FP Overground running on force plates OG Overground running without force plates OUT Outdoor overground running Modalities Data from all settings provides delta_time(s) between observations speed (ms/s), estimation differed by setting, as detailed in the paper's methodology, IMU measurements for each segment (pelvis pel, thigh thg, shank shk, foot fot) Tri-axial acceleration acc_x, _y,_z Tri-axial angular velocities gyr_x, _y,_z Thigh, shank, and foot also have an IMU estimate of the sagittal angle (deg) available sag_ang. Data with forceplates available (TM_FP and OG_FP) also provides 3D ground reaction forces Anterior-posterior ap_grf, medial lateral ml_grf, vertical v_grf Organization As detailed by the methods of the paper, data was collected under various speed and cadence conditions. For clear distinctions between participants and conditions, the data is organized as follows: TM_FP|--Participant_# |--Speed_# |--Cadence_# |--Stride_#OG_FP|--Participant_# |--Session_#_Stride_#OG|--Participant_# |--Session_#_Straightaway_#OUT|--Participant_# |-Session_#_Straightaway_#