Association Between Temporal Spatial Parameters and Overuse Injury History in Runners: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis.

Wearable devices make it easy to track running form outside the lab, raising hopes that simple measures like cadence or stride length could flag runners at risk of overuse injury. This systematic review and meta-analysis pooled data from retrospective and prospective studies comparing these temporal spatial parameters between runners with and without a history of overuse injury. Across pooled analyses of up to 11 retrospective studies, average stride time, contact time, cadence, and stride length did not show a statistically significant difference between injured and uninjured runners. The main limitation is that all pooled comparisons came from retrospective studies with inconsistent methods across the included research, and retrospective comparisons cannot show whether these running patterns caused injury or simply reflect differences between runners after injury occurred.

The authors conclude more prospective research is needed.

If you run and use a wearable device to track things like your step rate or stride length, you might wonder whether these numbers can tell you anything about your injury risk. This study looked at research comparing runners who had a history of overuse injuries, like shin splints or tendon pain, to those who hadn't, specifically looking at measures such as stride time, foot contact time, cadence, and stride length. When researchers combined data from multiple studies, they found no clear difference in any of these four measurements between injured and non-injured runners.

That doesn't mean your running form doesn't matter at all, but it does mean the simple numbers a wearable spits out, on their own, weren't linked to injury history in this body of evidence. An important caveat is that the pooled studies looked backward in time, comparing people after injury had already happened, which can't tell us whether a running pattern caused the injury or came after it.

This is a summary of research, not medical advice. Talk to your own healthcare provider about anything affecting your care.

The clinical question here is whether temporal spatial parameters, such as cadence or stride length, measured via wearables or lab assessment, distinguish runners with an overuse injury history from those without, informing their utility as a screening or risk-stratification tool. Meta-analyses pooling 11 retrospective studies found no statistically significant between-group difference for stride time (mean difference 0.00 s, 95% CI -0.01 to 0.01), contact time (0.00 s, 95% CI 0.00 to 0.01), cadence (0.3 spm, 95% CI -1.8 to 2.5), or stride length (0.00 m, 95% CI -0.05 to 0.05), drawn from 13 included articles testing 24 parameters overall. This null finding sharpens expectations around using these four basic gait parameters in isolation as retrospective injury markers, though it does not rule out associations for other temporal spatial parameters or running-related variables not pooled here.

The decisive limitation is that all pooled data are retrospective and methodologically inconsistent across studies, meaning causal or predictive claims about injury development cannot be supported; the authors call for prospective designs to address this gap.