Computer modeling of human lower limb muscles to study how muscle fiber lengths and velocities affect muscle force generation during walking and running
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- Walking and running rely on the complex coordination of the neurological, muscular, and skeletal systems. The role of muscles in this system is to produce force, a task that is dramatically affected by the dynamics of muscle fibers. In walking and running, we do not know how fiber dynamics affect force generation because experimental tools are ill suited to these measurements. Computer models can be powerful tools for estimating muscle dynamics that cannot be measured experimentally. During my doctoral research I created a model based on state-of-the-art muscle architecture data that estimates fiber lengths and velocities during movement. I used this model to create simulations of muscle fiber dynamics for five subjects walking and running at multiple speeds. Analysis of my simulations revealed how walking or running speed affects force generation, explained how running enables some muscles to produce more force than they do in walking, and yielded normative muscle fiber lengths and velocities of eleven muscles during walking and running. The results support the hypothesis that the walk-to-run transition in human gait is related to the force generation ability of the plantarflexors, offer insights into dynamic properties of muscles that have not yet been measured during walking and running, and permit comparisons among muscles with diverse architecture. The model and simulations created as part of this work can be applied to many other research areas in biomechanics and have been made freely available at simtk.org.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Form | electronic; electronic resource; remote |
| Extent | 1 online resource. |
| Publication date | 2012 |
| Issuance | monographic |
| Language | English |
Creators/Contributors
| Associated with | Arnold, Edith Merle |
|---|---|
| Associated with | Stanford University, Department of Mechanical Engineering |
| Primary advisor | Delp, Scott |
| Thesis advisor | Delp, Scott |
| Thesis advisor | Khatib, Oussama |
| Thesis advisor | McGill, Kevin Charles |
| Advisor | Khatib, Oussama |
| Advisor | McGill, Kevin Charles |
Subjects
| Genre | Theses |
|---|
Bibliographic information
| Statement of responsibility | Edith Merle Arnold. |
|---|---|
| Note | Submitted to the Department of Mechanical Engineering. |
| Thesis | Thesis (Ph.D.)--Stanford University, 2012. |
| Location | electronic resource |
Access conditions
- Copyright
- © 2012 by Edith Merle Arnold
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).
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