Human muscle activity and lower limb biomechanics of overground walking at varying levels of simulated reduced gravity and gait speeds.

ABSTRACT: Reducing the mechanical load on the human body through simulated reduced gravity can reveal important insight into locomotion biomechanics. The purpose of this study was to quantify the effects of simulated reduced gravity on muscle activation levels and lower limb biomechanics across a range of overground walking speeds. Our overall hypothesis was that muscle activation amplitudes would not decrease proportionally to gravity level. We recruited 12 participants (6 female, 6 male) to walk overground at 1.0, 0.76, 0.55, and 0.31 G for four speeds: 0.4, 0.8, 1.2, and 1.6 ms-1. We found that peak ground reaction forces, peak knee extension moment in early stance, peak hip flexion moment, and peak ankle extension moment all decreased substantially with reduced gravity. The peak knee extension m

SUBMITTER: MacLean MK 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8279339 | biostudies-literature | 2021

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature