Context: Functional implications of clinically relevant abdominal postures have been sparsely examined. Objectives: To evaluate the reliability of sustaining abdominal postures during single-leg landings and the effects of abdominal postures on lower extremity kinetics and energetics. Design: One-way ANOVA tested effects of leg-spring stiffness and lower extremity energetics across groups (cont...

This study aims at evaluating the current pedestrian lower leg test procedure with respect to the human response in a pedestrian accident. The test procedure is examined for a variety of representative cars of the European fleet. The investigation is purely based on numerical simulations carried out using the regulatory lower leg impactor, as described in the Directive 2004/90/EC, and compared ...

Pediatric anthropomorphic test devices (ATDs) do not contain instrumentation below the knee, making it difficult to directly measure forces applied to the leg during impact. The goal of this study was to evaluate the anthropometric characteristics and stiffness response of the pediatric ankle in order to gain valuable data for the development of a more biofidelic ATD ankle. Forty-two children b...

PURPOSE The Achilles tendon (AT) must adapt to meet changes in demands. This study explored AT adaptation by comparing properties within the jump and non-jump legs of jumping athletes. Non-jumping control athletes were included to control limb dominance effects. METHODS AT properties were assessed in the preferred (jump) and non-preferred (lead) jumping legs of male collegiate-level long and/...

Locomotion can be described as a subsequent series of stance and flight phases. In both phases the leg properties can be adapted. Here we consider spring-mass running with a linear adaptation of two leg parameters, leg angle and leg stiffness, during swing phase. The region of stability is characterized by the basin of attraction with sufficient reduction of a given perturbation within one step...

Several recent studies on the control of legged locomotion in animal and robot running focus on the influence of different leg parameters on gait stability. In a preceding investigation self-stability controls showing deadbeat behavior could be obtained by studying the dynamics of the system in dependence of the leg orientation carefully adjusted during the flight phase. Such controls allow to ...

The purpose of this study was to identify whether the value of stiffness during two-legged countermovement jump in dominant lower limb is similar to the one in non-dominant lower limb. The research was conducted on 35 basketball players. Each participant performed three countermovement jumps with arm swing to the maximum height. Measurements employed a two Kistler force plates and a BTS SMART s...

objective hereditary spastic paraplegia (hsp) is a degenerative disease of genetic origin affecting the corticospinal tracts in the spinal cord. there are three forms of inheritance: autosomal dominant hsp, autosomal rececive hsp and x-linked hsp. this disease is characterized by progressive spasticity of leg muscles with varying degrees of stiffness and weakness of other muscle groups. in this...