ArticleThe Journal of physiology2007
The passive, human calf muscles in relation to standing: the short range stiffness lies in the contractile component.
Article in The Journal of physiology, 2007. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 39 papers.
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Who cites it
39 citing papers in PubMed.
- The resonant component of human physiological hand tremor is altered by slow voluntary movements.The Journal of physiology · 2012Trial
- Stabilization strategies for unstable dynamics.PloS one · 2012Trial
- Impact of Visual Input and Kinesiophobia on Postural Control and Quality of Life in Older Adults During One-Leg Standing Tasks.Vision (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Center of mass states render multijoint torques throughout standing balance recovery.Journal of neurophysiology · 2025Article
- Increased muscle responses to balance perturbations in children with cerebral palsy can be explained by increased sensitivity to center of mass movement.Gait & posture · 2024Article
- Non-linear properties of the Achilles tendon determine ankle impedance over a broad range of activations in humans.The Journal of experimental biology · 2023Article
- Current developments in surface electromyography.Turkish journal of medical sciences · 2023Review
- Simultaneous Quantification of Ankle, Muscle, and Tendon Impedance in Humans.IEEE transactions on bio-medical engineering · 2022Article
- Leveraging Joint Mechanics Simplifies the Neural Control of Movement.Frontiers in integrative neuroscience · 2022Article
- Individual differences in intrinsic ankle stiffness and their relationship to body sway and ankle torque.PloS one · 2021Article
- Muscle thixotropy-where are we now?Journal of applied physiology (Bethesda, Md. : 1985) · 2019Review
- Correlation Between Muscle Structures and Electrical Properties of the Tibialis Anterior in Subacute Stroke Survivors: A Pilot Study.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2019Article
- Article
- Active Viscoelasticity of Sarcomeres.Frontiers in robotics and AI · 2018Review
- Intrinsic ankle stiffness during standing increases with ankle torque and passive stretch of the Achilles tendon.PloS one · 2018Article
- Contribution of muscle short-range stiffness to initial changes in joint kinetics and kinematics during perturbations to standing balance: A simulation study.Journal of biomechanics · 2017Article
- Mechanical effort predicts the selection of ankle over hip strategies in nonstepping postural responses.Journal of neurophysiology · 2016Article
- Functional coordination of muscles underlying changes in behavioural dynamics.Scientific reports · 2016Article
- Physiological tremor reveals how thixotropy adapts skeletal muscle for posture and movement.Royal Society open science · 2016Article
- Sway-dependent changes in standing ankle stiffness caused by muscle thixotropy.The Journal of physiology · 2016Article
Corrections and comments
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3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Using short duration perturbations, previous attempts to measure the intrinsic ankle stiffness during human standing have revealed a substantial stabilizing contribution (65-90% normalized to load stiffness 'mgh'). Others regard this method as unsuitable for the low-frequency conditions of quiet standing and believe the passive contribution to be small (10-15%). This latter view, consistent with a linear Hill-type model, argues that during standing, the contractile portion of the muscle is much less stiff than the tendon. Here, for upright subjects, we settle this issue by measuring the stiffness of the contractile portion of the passive calf muscles using low-frequency ankle rotations. Using ultrasound we tracked the changes in muscle contractile length and partitioned the ankle rotation into contractile and extra-contractile (series elastic) portions. Small ankle rotations of 0.15 and 0.4 deg show a contractile to series elastic stiffness ratio (K(ce)/K(se)) of 12 +/- 9 and 6.3 +/- 10, respectively, with both elements displaying predominantly elastic behaviour. Larger, 7 deg rotations reveal the range of this ratio. It declines in a non-linear way from a high value (K(ce)/K(se) = 18 +/- 11) to a low value (K(ce)/K(se) = 1 +/- 0.4) as rotation increases from 0.1 to 7 deg. There is a marked transition at around 0.5 deg. The series elastic stiffness (K(se)/mgh) remains largely constant (77 +/- 13%) demonstrating the contractile component origin of passive, short range stiffness. The linear Hill-type model does not describe the range-related stiffness relevant to the progression from quiet standing to perturbed balance and movement and can lead to inaccurate predictions regarding human balance.
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