## 3 Results  
Spatial gait changes under the different loading conditions are presented in Table 1. Carrying heavier loads did not result in significant spatial gait changes (\(p>0.05\)). Although non-significant, the largest magnitudes were observed for a single limb support line for both the left and right foot. For the other variables, a gradual increase in stride length, step width, and length of gait line for the left foot was observed, while a non-linear trend in other variables showed that heavier load carriage might not impact spatial gait parameters at the same rate. The spatial parameter to be almost significant was single limb support time for the right foot, where a linear decrease from 'no load' to 'load 3' was observed; however, differences remained statistically non-significant.  
Table 2 shows temporal gait changes under the different loading conditions. Significant decrements of values after applying heavier loads were observed for'step- time-L','swing phase-L', and swing phase-R'. Specifically, significant differences were shown between the 'no load' and 'load 3' conditions for all variables. On the other hand, significant increments in values for 'cadence','stance phase-L','stance phase-R', 'load response-L', and 'load response-R' were observed. A _post-hoc_ analysis showed that significant differences occurred between 'no load' and 'load 3' for 'cadence' (mean diff. \(-3.807\), 95% CI \(-7.114\)--\(0.500\), \(p=0.015\)), between 'load 1' and 'load 3' for'stance phase-R' (mean diff. \(-0.981\), 95% CI \(-1.897\)--\(-0.064\), \(p=0.029\)) and between 'load 1' and 'load 3' for 'load response-R' (mean diff. \(-0.751\), 95% CI \(-1.468\)--\(-0.034\), \(p=0.034\)). No significant differences in other temporal gait parameters were detected (\(p>0.05\)). Although significant temporal changes occurred, partial eta squared showed only trivial to small effect sizes between the load conditions, with the highest being obtained for the stance phase for the right foot and the lowest for the swing phase for both the left and right foot.  
\begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{l c c c c c} \hline \hline
**Study Variables** & **’No Load’** & **’Load 1’** & **’Load 2’** & **Load 3’** & **Main Effect** \\ \hline
**Spatial Gait Parameters** & **Mean (SD)** & **Mean (SD)** & **Mean (SD)** & **Mean (SD)** & **F (\(p\)-Value)** & \(\mathbf{\eta^{2}}\) \\ \hline Foot rotation-L (\(\lx@math@degree\)) * & 8.3 (4.9–11.4) & 7.8 (4.9–11.4) & 8.6 (5.2–11.6) & 8.1 (5.3–10.7) & 0.509 (0.667) & 0.005 \\ \hline Foot rotation-R (\(\lx@math@degree\)) * & 10.1 (7.4-14.7) & 9.9 (6.1–14.4) & 10.3 (7.7–14.0) & 9.9 (6.7–13.9) & 0.094 (0.963) & 0.001 \\ \hline Step length-L (cm) & 68.5 (5.6) & 68.7 (6.3) & 68.5 (6.3) & 68.9 (6.4) & 0.086 (0.968) & 0.001 \\ \hline Step length-R (cm) & 67.6 (5.9) & 68.7 (5.8) & 68.5 (6.0) & 69.0 (6.2) & 0.901 (0.441) & 0.008 \\ \hline Stride length (cm) & 136.0 (10.6) & 136.8 (11.0) & 137.0 (11.7) & 137.9 (12.0) & 0.385 (0.764) & 0.004 \\ \hline Step width (cm) & 15.3 (2.9) & 15.4 (2.7) & 15.6 (2.8) & 15.7 (2.9) & 0.311 (0.817) & 0.002 \\ \hline Length of gait line-L (mm) & 239.1 (26.3) & 242.4 (22.1) & 245.1 (17.9) & 242.7 (22.9) & 1.118 (0.342) & 0.009 \\ \hline Length of gait line-R (mm) & 242.4 (18.2) & 239.5 (23.6) & 240.9 (24.9) & 243.3 (19.4) & 0.587 (0.624) & 0.005 \\ \hline Single limb support line-L (mm) & 121.6 (21.3) & 127.1 (20.4) & 124.8 (13.9) & 123.5 (13.8) & 1.382 (0.248) & 0.013 \\ \hline Single limb support line-R (mm) & 125.7 (13.0) & 122.0 (15.4) & 120.6 (17.2) & 120.7 (14.6) & 2.060 (0.105) & 0.019 \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
* denotes using median and interquartile range (25 th–75 th percentile); \(p<0.05\).  
\end{table}
Table 1: Changes in spatial gait parameters under the different loading conditions.