Table 3.

Stride-to-stride fluctuations (α) and adaptive response for step rate and contact time at baseline, during, and post enforced step frequency compared to baseline values across experience levels.

	Novice	Intermediate	Experienced
Baseline
Step rate α	0.71 ± 0.10	0.71 ± 0.12b	0.66 ± 0.11a
Contact time α	0.73 ± 0.09	0.70 ± 0.07a	0.70 ± 0.08a
Perturbation
Step rate α	0.67 ± 0.22	0.67 ± 0.22	0.68 ± 0.21
Contact time α	0.72 ± 0.10	0.71 ± 0.12	0.73 ± 0.16
Time to plateau (s)	2.80 ± 0.58	2.75 ± 0.72	2.69 ± 0.70
Time to reach ESF (s) c	167.7 ± 119.1	166.3 ± 119.7	152.7 ± 123.0
ESF match (spm)	−6.4 ± 8.3	−4.7 ± 11.7b	−3.7 ± 9.8a
Post-Perturbation
Step rate α	0.70 ± 0.15	0.67 ± 0.15	0.67 ± 0.17
Contact time α	0.70 ± 0.09	0.70 ± 0.10	0.71 ± 0.13
Time to plateau (s)	2.50 ± 0.90	2.56 ± 0.70	2.59 ± 0.67
Time to return to PSF (s)c	27.5 ± 98.2	17.8 ± 77.4	7.78 ± 44.5a
Step frequency drift (spm)	1.6 ± 2.5	0.7 ± 2.8a,b	1.2 ± 1.8

ESF = enforced step frequency, PSF = preferred step frequency, spm = steps per minute.

^aSignificant difference from novice group (p < 0.05).

^bSignificant difference from experienced group (p < 0.05).

^cWithin ± 2%.