Data-driven gait cycle decomposition based on whole-body coordination dynamics

The study of human locomotion has long relied on descriptive frameworks of the gait cycle, which have provided essential insights into the functional phases of walking and their underlying biomechanical demands. While these models remain highly informative, they are largely based on observational analyses and may not fully capture the continuous, global coordination that characterizes human movement. The present study proposes an integrated framework to study whole-body coordination. This framework combines network theory with non-negative matrix factorization (NNMF) to treat gait as a dynamic system of coordinated joint interactions. Using three-dimensional kinematic data from 60 healthy subjects, we constructed a representation of whole-body coordination across time, named "dynamic kinectome". It was then decomposed using NNMF to extract spatial patterns of joint coordination and their corresponding temporal activations, allowing for an interpretable characterization of locomotor organization while preserving physiological meaning. Our analysis extracted six robust, highly consistent, and symmetrical coordination patterns across participants, effectively capturing the primary functional subtasks of locomotion. Rather than challenging classical phase descriptions, these findings enrich them by showing how coordination emerges as a continuous, often proactive process that can extend across conventional phase boundaries and systematically integrates the upper limbs for dynamic stability. Overall, this study provides a holistic, data-driven perspective on human locomotion, offering a promising basis for future investigations in motor control and may contribute to the development of sensitive biomarkers for clinical and rehabilitative applications.