What might cause ground reaction force be greater than expected whilst one is walking? Is there perhaps a certain way of walking/running that might be the cause of this?
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When you are walking or running, the force of the ground on your foot is not constant - but the integral of force over time, divided by time, should average to your weight.
Thus, if you "bounce" you will spend most of your time in the air, and the force must be greater at the time you are on the ground; hard surface, using rigid footwear, locked knees, and wrong technique for footstrike are just some factors that could further increase the maximum force.
Entire books have been written on the subject of how to walk / run to minimize impact. But a nice start is this article in runner's world - which includes this diagram:
The vertical scale is multiples of body weight (BW). See the article for more detail.
Floris
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