3-D inverse dynamics analysis of the effect of maximum muscle force capacities on a musculoskeletal system

Abstract

It is known that muscle strength of human body can alter or deteriorate as aging. In this study, we present an inverse dynamics simulation to investigate the effect of muscle strength on performing the daily activities. A 3D musculoskeletal model developed in this study includes several segments of whole body, long and short muscles, ligaments and disc stiffness. Five daily activities such as standing, flexion, finger tip to floor, standing lift close and lifting flexed were simulated with varying the maximum muscle force capacities (MFC) of each muscle fascicles from 30 to 90 N/cm2 with an increment of 30 N/cm2. In the result, no solution can be obtained for finger tip to floor and lifting flexed with 30 N/cm2. Even though the solution was available for standing lift close activity in case of 30 N/cm2 capacity, many of muscle fascicles hit the upper bound of muscle strength which means that it is not physiologically possible to perform the acvities in reality. For lifing flexed, even the case of 60 N/cm2 capaciy, represents the moderate healthy people, was not able to find the solutions, showing that 18 muscles among 258 muscle fascicles reached 100% of muscle capacity. The estimated results imply that people who have low muscle strength such as elders or rehabilitation patients were required higher muscle work to perform and maintain the same daily activities than healthy one.