Movement is fundamental to human life: it supports everyday function, contributes to health, and enables performance in sport.
Our research investigates human movement at the interface of sport science, motor control and biomechanics. We study how movement emerges from the interplay between the nervous system and the musculoskeletal system, and how humans learn, adapt, and optimize motor behavior.
We focus on the control and biomechanics of movement, the effects of practice and assistive technologies, and methods for performance diagnostics. Across these areas, our goal is to understand how movement can be assessed, supported, and improved in everyday life, sport, prevention, and rehabilitation.
Our work addresses fundamental questions in motor control, including modularity, stability, and variability in human movement. In motor learning, we investigate how modular control changes with practice and how variable practice protocols can promote learning. Building on this foundation, we study human-technology interaction in applications such as running shoes, orthoses, and exoskeletons. We also develop approaches for predicting internal biomechanical states using wearables and machine learning, and apply performance diagnostics in high-performance sport.
Methodologically, we combine experimental and computational approaches from sport science, physiology, mechanics, control theory, machine learning, and robotics. This interdisciplinary perspective allows us to identify principles underlying human movement and translate them into practical applications. Our scientific work is complemented by practical experience in various sports.
At the Institute of Sports and Sports Science, we represent the natural and engineering sciences in sport, including motor control, biomechanics, sports informatics, and engineering. Our research is embedded in the broader structures of Karlsruhe Institute of Technology through our involvement in the KIT Centers “Information · Systems · Technologies” and “Health Technologies”.
Dr. Cagla Kettner and co-authors have published an article titled “Self-paced treadmill speed differentially affects gait variability and stability in walking and running”.
View the articleDr. Cagla Kettner and co-authors have published an article titled “Differences in running kinematics and stride-to-stride variability between self-paced treadmill and overground running on two surfaces”.
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Dr. Michael Herzog has published an article titled “Motor adaptation of gait to bilaterally added lower-limb mass in young adults”. This work is a collaboration between the research groups of Prof. Deml (IFAB) and Prof. Stein (BioMotion Center, IFSS) at KIT.
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Dr. Bernd Stetter and Prof. Dr. Thorsten Stein organized a special issue titled “Wearable Sensors and Machine Learning in Sports Biomechanics” as guest editors and, in addition to an editorial, contributed the article “Wearable Sensors and Machine Learning for Field-Based Biomechanical Load Assessment in Sports: A Structured Overview of Current Research”.
View the special issueDr. Cagla Kettner has published an article titled „Ankle exoskeleton assistance increases task-relevant variability without altering center of mass control during walking”.
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Dr. Cagla Kettner has published a systematic review titled “The Effects of Shoe Sole Thickness on Running Biomechanics and Economy: A Systematic Review.”
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