Performance fatigability and spatiotemporal gait alterations following prolonged running: A systematic review and secondary analysis

Prolonged running, defined in the present paper as distances >3000 m, results in neurophysiological and gait alterations. Although these changes appear to develop concurrently, it remains unclear whether neurophysiological responses modulate spatiotemporal gait parameters. This systematic review with secondary analyses aimed to quantify the relationship between conventional performance fatigability assessments (i.e., maximal voluntary contraction (∆MVC), maximal voluntary activation (∆VA), and potentiated twitch force (∆Ptw)) of the knee extensors (KE) and plantar flexors (PF) and alterations in spatiotemporal gait parameters (i.e., step frequency (∆SF), step length (∆SL), aerial time (∆t a ), and contact time (∆t c )). The relationships between relative changes in performance fatigability and spatiotemporal gait parameters were assessed using simple linear regressions. The results demonstrated moderate to very large relationships between KE and PF ∆MVC with ∆SF ( R 2 = 0.55–0.80, p ≤ 0.01), ∆SL ( R 2 = 0.56–0.89, p < 0.05), and ∆t c ( R 2 = 0.46–0.92, p ≤ 0.03). Further analyses exploring central and peripheral components of performance fatigability demonstrated moderate to very large relationships between KE and PF ∆Ptw with ∆t c ( R 2 = 0.59–0.92, p ≤ 0.01). There were no significant relationships between performance fatigability and ∆t a . The results indicate that ∆SF and ∆SL are associated with reductions in KE and PF MVC, whereas ∆t c is associated with ∆MVC and its peripheral attributes. These findings suggest that neuromuscular and spatiotemporal gait alterations develop concomitantly, providing insights into the application of gait parameters as a surrogate of performance fatigability following prolonged running.