Independent ambulation is one of the most important motor skills in typically developing toddlers. Gait analysis is a key evaluation method in basic and clinical research. A narrative review on the literature of toddler gait development was conducted following inclusion criteria, explicitly including the factors of English article, age range, no external intervention during the experimental process of studies involved, the non-symptomatic toddler, and no pathological gait. Studies about toddlers’ morphological, physiological, and biomechanical aspects at this developmental stage were identified. Remarkable gait characteristics and specific development rules of toddlers at different ages were reported. Changes in gait biomechanics are age and walking experience-dependent. Gait patterns are related to the maturation of the neuro and musculoskeletal systems. This review thus provides critical and theoretical information and the nature of toddler walking development for clinicians and other scientific researchers. Future studies may systematically recruit subjects with more explicit criteria with larger samples for longitudinal studies. A particular design could be conducted to analyze empirically before practical application. Additionally, the influence of external interventions on the development of toddler gait may need consideration for gait development in the toddler cohort.

Running-related injuries are common among runners. Recent studies in footwear have shown that designs of shoes can potentially affect sports performance and risk of injury. Bionic shoes combine the functions of barefoot running and foot protection and incorporate traditional unstable structures based on bionic science. The purpose of this study was to investigate ground reaction force (GRF) differences for a 5 km run and how bionic shoes affect GRFs. Sixteen male recreational runners volunteered to participate in this study and finished two 5 km running sessions (a neutral shoe session and a bionic shoe session). Two-way repeated-measures ANOVAs were performed to determine the differences in GRFs. In the analysis of the footwear conditions of runners, bionic shoes showed significant decreases in vertical impulse, peak propulsive force, propulsive impulse, and contact time, while the braking impulse and vertical instantaneous loading rate (VILR) increased significantly compared to the neutral shoes. Main effects for a 5 km run were also observed at vertical GRFs and anterior–posterior GRFs. The increases of peak vertical impact force, vertical average loading rate (VALR), VILR, peak braking force and braking impulse were observed in post-5 km running trials and a reduction in peak propulsive force and propulsive impulse. The interaction effects existed in VILR and contact time. The results suggest that bionic shoes may benefit runners with decreasing injury risk during running. The findings of the present study may help to understand the effects of footwear design during prolonged running, thereby providing valuable information for reducing the risk of running injuries.

The fetal movements during different gestational weeks are essential for normal musculoskeletal development. The kinematic characteristics of fetuses with small differences in gestational weeks may be different and important. Ultrasonographic videos of fetal kicking action and plantarflexion action were collected from three healthy pregnant women (24, 27, and 30 gestational weeks) with normal fetal development. The kinematic characteristics, including angular range and angular velocity, were analyzed. These kinematic parameters were measured using simi motion. The final knee angle was found to decrease with progressive gestational weeks. Compared with 24 w, the knee joint angle at 27 w and 30 w was significantly reduced at the end of a kick-type movement (p < 0.01). Except for the mean angular velocity of the knee joint, there were no significant differences in the other conditions. The value at 30 w for mean angular velocity was significantly higher than that at 24 w (p = 0.02). In the ankle joint, no significant differences were observed between different conditions. Therefore, we can conclude that there was no significant difference in the kinematic characteristics of the ankle joint for small gestational age gaps, but there was a significant difference in the knee joint. As the gestation weeks increase, the range of kicking motion tends to decrease. The reason may be that with the increase of gestational weeks, fetal lower limb musculoskeletal development is gradually enhanced; the slower growth rate indicates that development reaches a peak level in weeks 24 to 30.