Running and walking are the most natural, fundamental human movements. But when you repeat the exact same motion thousands of times a day, even the slightest biomechanical inefficiency can lead to lingering pain, diminished performance, or a season-ending injury.
Whether you are logging heavy training miles for a 100-mile ultramarathon, navigating the technical trails of the Santa Monica Mountains, or simply trying to get your daily steps in without your knees aching, how your foot hits the ground matters.
That is why Ascent Physical Therapy & Performance offers comprehensive gait analysis performed by a certified running and walking gait analyst.
A clinical gait analysis is far more than just watching you walk across the room. It is a detailed, biomechanical breakdown of your entire kinetic chain in motion.
Using slow-motion video feedback and clinical expertise, we analyze the specific phases of your stride. We look closely at:
The running shoe industry has exploded with “new technology”. Most of it is not actually very new - their marketing has just become more clever and trends come and go and then come back again. From massive stack heights and aggressive rocker geometries to stiff carbon fiber plates, your footwear drastically alters your mechanics.
But is that high-performance gear actually working for you? A professional gait analysis can help determine if your shoes are supporting your goals or inadvertently contributing to pain.
You might have had someone look at your feet on a treadmill at a local sporting goods store before buying shoes. While that can be helpful for sizing, it is not a clinical evaluation.
A retail employee is trained to sell you a shoe based on your arch. A certified gait analyst and physical therapist is trained to diagnose the root cause of your pain. If we spot a collapsing arch or a dropped hip during your analysis, we don't just put a different shoe on it. We correlate those movement patterns with a hands-on physical assessment of your strength, mobility, and joint health to build a targeted rehabilitation plan.