A gait is a pattern of leg movements, and five of them have just been described:
walk, trot, gallop, canter, pace. Strictly speaking, the gallop of the horse is
a transverse gallop. There is another kind, the rotary gallop,
in which the legs at the front hit the ground in the opposite order to those at
the back. This is how cheetahs move when they are chasing prey. Gait analysis
applies to all animals with legs, including insects, with six; spiders, with
eight; and humans, with two. It seeks to understand the general principles of
legged locomotion in nature. Those principles also apply to creatures that use
wings, or fins, or wriggle—like snakes. Even snails have their own
characteristic gaits. each leg hits the ground one quarter of the gait cycle after the previous
leg
|
