Muscle function during single leg landing

Abstract

Landing manoeuvres are an integral task for humans, especially in the context of sporting activities. Such tasks often involve landing on one leg which requires the coordination of multiple muscles in order to effectively dissipate kinetic energy. However, no prior studies have provided a detailed description of the strategy used by the major lower limb muscles to perform single-leg landing. The purpose of the present study was to understand how humans coordinate their lower limb muscles during a single-leg landing task. Marker trajectories, ground reaction forces (GRFs), and surface electromyography (EMG) data were collected from healthy male participants performing a single-leg landing from a height of 0.31 m. An EMG-informed neuromusculoskeletal modelling approach was used to generate neuromechanical simulations of the single-leg landing task. The muscular strategy was determined by computing the magnitude and temporal characteristics of musculotendon forces and energetics. Muscle function was determined by computing muscle contributions to lower limb net joint moments, GRFs and lower limb joint contact forces. It was found that the vasti, soleus, gluteus maximus and gluteus medius produced the greatest muscle forces and negative (eccentric) mechanical work. Downward momentum of the centre-of-mass was resisted primarily by the soleus, vasti, gastrocnemius, rectus femoris, and gluteus maximus, whilst forward momentum was primarily resisted by the quadriceps (vasti and rectus femoris). Flexion of the lower limb joints was primarily resisted by the uni-articular gluteus maximus (hip), vasti (knee) and soleus (ankle). Overall, our findings provide a unique insight into the muscular strategy used by humans during a landing manoeuvre and have implications for the design of athletic training programs.