Question: what kind of things do you do in the lab? x

LauraAnne Furlong answered on 3 Nov 2016:

I do lots of different things in the lab! I mainly look at how your legs move, and why they move that way. I do this for a few reasons – to learn what the best way to move is to perform at your best, to figure out why people might get injured, and to inform design of equipment like prosthetics or powered limbs.

To do this, I use lots of reflective dots which our cameras can see to tell me where bits of someone’s body are during tasks where we get people to walk, run or jump, we can also measure the forces on their body during these tasks.

Sometimes I might only get someone to walk or run for short times, like 30 seconds, and other times they might need to run until they can’t run anymore. During these tests, I might also use something called electromyography, which measures what muscles you are using and how much you are using them, and use an ultrasound machine (like what is used to take pictures of babies in the womb) to record videos of what your muscles and tendons are doing underneath your skin.