[Purpose] Lateral wedge insoles reduce the peak external knee adduction moment and are advocated for patients with knee osteoarthritis. However, some patients demonstrate adverse biomechanical effects with treatment. In this study, we examined the immediate effects of lateral and medial wedge insoles under unilateral weight bearing. [Subjects and Methods] Thirty healthy young adults participate...

A three-dimensional numerical model of human standing is presented that reproduces the dynamics of simple swaying motions while in double-support. The human model is structurally realistic, having both trunk and two legs with segment lengths and mass distributions defined using human morphological data from the literature. In this investigation, model stability in standing is achieved through t...

We hypothesize that application of an unopposed quadriceps force coupled with an impulsive ground reaction force may induce anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury. This situation is similar to landing from a jump if only the quadriceps muscle is active; an unlikely but presumably dangerous circumstance. The purpose of this study was to test our hypothesis using in vitro simulation of jump land...

Several spring-damper-mass models of the human body have been developed in order to reproduce the measured ground vertical reaction forces during human running (McMahon and Cheng, 1990; Ferris et al., 1999; Liu and Nigg, 2000). In particular, Liu and Nigg introduced at the lower level of their model, i.e. at the interface between the human body and the ground, a nonlinear element representing s...

Running performance, energy requirements and musculoskeletal stresses are directly related to the action-reaction forces between the limb and the ground. For human runners, the force-time patterns from individual footfalls can vary considerably across speed, foot-strike and footwear conditions. Here, we used four human footfalls with distinctly different vertical force-time waveform patterns to...

The effect of mechanical force on the free-energy surface that governs a chemical reaction is largely unknown. The combination of protein engineering with single-molecule force-clamp spectroscopy allows us to study the influence of mechanical force on the rate at which a protein disulfide bond is reduced by nucleophiles in a bimolecular substitution reaction (S(N)2). We found that cleavage of a...

The zero moment point (ZMP), foot rotation indicator (FRI) and centroidal moment pivot (CMP) are important ground reference points used for motion identification and control in biomechanics and legged robotics. In this paper, we study these reference points for normal human walking, and discuss their applicability in legged machine control. Since the FRI was proposed as an indicator of foot rot...