Peculiarities of distribution of electrical activity of muscles during walking along treadmill

Abstract

Authors of this article give the comparative estimation of peculiarities of walking along the horizontal surface and treadmill. Authors thoroughly investigated change of the main parameters and EMG-pattern of muscles at different cadences during walking along the horizontal surface and treadmill. Authors established, that during walking along treadmill cadence changes quite insufficiently, while the step length changes to a greater extent. From authors’ point of view, such disproportionate change of cadence and step length leads to the expressed transformation of the resonance properties of the lower extremities, i.e. to discrepancy of frequency of the forced oscillations with the own oscillations of the lower extremities. From the authors’ point of view, change of the resonance phenomena are revealed in inconsiderable increase of the mean electrical activity during the locomotor cycle, in absence of the parabolic dependence in the curve of the summary integral of electrical activity for the locomotor cycle during walking at different cadence, in very limited zone of the optimal walking cadence, in slight growth of muscle capacity with increase of walking velocity. Authors suppose, that training of walking along treadmill and especially training with application of functional electrical stimulation (FES) must be realized with great care, what supposes determination of the optimal walking velocity (i.e. that velocity, which is accompanied by the maximal decrease of the energy expenditures), and also definition of the mean electrical activity (muscle capacity) and the summary integral for the distance of 10 m (work of muscle with an account of both cadence and the step length). Authors consider, that it is possible to apply FES during walking along treadmill only in those patients, who are able to walk with velocity 2.5 km/hour and more.