College of Health

The natural transition from walking to running occurs in adults at ≅140 steps/min. It is unknown when this transition occurs in children and adolescents. The purpose of this study was to develop a model to predict age- and anthropometry-specific preferred transition cadences in individuals 6-20 years of age. Sixty-nine individuals performed sequentially faster 5-min treadmill walking bouts, starting at 0.22 m/s and increasing by 0.22 m/s until completion of the bout during which they freely chose to run. Steps accumulated during each bout were directly observed and converted to cadence (steps/min). A logistic regression model was developed to predict preferred transition cadences using the best subset of parameters. The resulting model, which included age, sex, height, and BMI z-score, produced preferred transition cadences that accurately classified gait behaviour (k-fold cross-validated prediction accuracy =97.02%). This transition cadence ranged from 136-161 steps/min across the developmental age range studied. The preferred transition cadence represents a simple and practical index to predict and classify gait behaviour from wearable sensors in children, adolescents, and young adults. Moreover, herein we provide an equation and an open access online R Shiny app that researchers, practitioners, or clinicians can use to predict individual-specific preferred transition cadences.