The prediction of muscular lad sharing and joint forces in the lower extremities during walking.

Previous work by the authors on the mathematical modelling of the lower extremities is extended in this paper to the prediction of muscle load sharing and the corresponding hip, knee and ankle joint reactions during walking when the motion pattern is known beforehand. Using the same criterion for muscle load sharing as in the previous work on leaning and squatting, the results show excellent agreement with typical electromyographic patterns for all the major muscles. The extent of alleviating the load on certain joints without changing the motion pattern is also investigated.