Athletes from across Aurora, Denver and Englewood know to rely on Peak Physical Therapy when it comes to healing and rehabbing from accident or injury. But what you may not know is how athletes from across Colorado also utilize our friendly and knowledgeable team of medical experts to prevent injury as well. One of the most specialized services we offer to athletes of all sports and skill levels is gait analysis. Gait analysis isn’t just a great way to see if you can minimize common aches and pains you experience from running, it’s also a way to improve your future running performance and to make it as pain free as possible. 

Your individualized running assessment —also known as gait assessment —will provide you all the information you need to to know to enhance your performance and prevent injury, through both adjustments to your gait and by providing the type of information you can utilize to invest in the proper equipment. In addition addressing prevalent musculoskeletal and biomechanical impairments that could be causing you pain, our team also provides patients with a a comprehensive video analysis of your running form which can be utilized to make any necessary adjustments. 

The process starts when one of our team members records footage of your movement on a treadmill. This footage —about thirty seconds long —allows us to see what type of pronation, or natural side-to-side movement of the foot as you walk or run. It is also known as “eversion.” There are three types on eversion, and our staff will help you to determine which category you fall under.

Overpronation: Around 70% of humans overpronate, which means their plant leg rolls inward as they step into their gate. You may overpronate if you have low arches or flat feet. 

Underpronation: Also referred to as supination, this occurs when the ankle strikes the ground at a steep angle. This pronation is usually common among athletes with high arches. 

Neutral: Neural pronation occurs when the food lands flat in a controlled manner, distributing weight evenly from the front of the foot up the leg. 

The Peak PT team will analyze your specific running gait in an effort to reduce pain, decrease your risk of future injury and even hope to improve your future performance. We can also recommended specific styles of running shoes In addition to offering you a range of therapeutic exercise tailored to your protonation, as well as manual therapy and soft tissue mobilization to help keep you running fresh.