Objective Walking and jogging are both the most basic movements for human. Walking backward is a kind of movement of rehabilitation training for treating the patient with a non-specificity pain in the lower back. Knowing the normal gait characteristics may provide the comparison for researches on treating the disease and concluding the abnormal gait. Methods We chose 50 college students as our subjects and collected the gait parameters of subjects during natural walking, walking backwards and jogging by using 0.5m footscan USB plantar pressure distribution measurement system and made statistical analysis for the data with SPSS 17.0. Results In the three kinds of movement patterns, there were no significant differences between left and right feet for the heel strike phase, stance phase and propulsion phase. And there were significant differences between left and right feet in arch index. Impulse percentage under forefoot was the most. However, there were significant differences for the heel strike phase, stance phase and propulsion phase, and for the peak pressure under T2-T5, M1-M5 and MF between the jogging and walking naturally. Compared with walking naturally and jogging, the stance phase and foot axis angle increased significantly when subjects walk backward. Conclusions Different movement pattern changed the plantar pressure distribution. In daily exercise, we should choose movement considering our physical conditions.