Tendon elastic energy
Posted: Tue Jun 26, 2012 7:24 pm
Hi everyone,
I'm currently working on a project to try and calculate elastic power/energy in the plantarflexors in walking and running using OpenSim.
To calculate the power, I'm using the forces determined through static optimisation and the lengths determined through muscle analysis. However, when I compare the lengths of the muscle fibers and tendons to other in vivo studies, I have found the contribution of the muscle fibers to the change in MTU length is much greater than expected and attributed more towards muscles with long fibers and short, stiff tendons. As the plantarflexors consist of short fibres and long, compliant tendons, we would expect the tendons to contribute to the change in MTU length far greater than the fibers.
I was just wondering if anyone had a solution to my problem where I can tinker with OpenSim allowing the tendons to contribute to the change in MTU length instead of the muscle fibers. Thus I can use the tendon and fiber lengths to calculate the power contribution of each component.
Thank you all for your help.
Adrian
I'm currently working on a project to try and calculate elastic power/energy in the plantarflexors in walking and running using OpenSim.
To calculate the power, I'm using the forces determined through static optimisation and the lengths determined through muscle analysis. However, when I compare the lengths of the muscle fibers and tendons to other in vivo studies, I have found the contribution of the muscle fibers to the change in MTU length is much greater than expected and attributed more towards muscles with long fibers and short, stiff tendons. As the plantarflexors consist of short fibres and long, compliant tendons, we would expect the tendons to contribute to the change in MTU length far greater than the fibers.
I was just wondering if anyone had a solution to my problem where I can tinker with OpenSim allowing the tendons to contribute to the change in MTU length instead of the muscle fibers. Thus I can use the tendon and fiber lengths to calculate the power contribution of each component.
Thank you all for your help.
Adrian