Hill-Based Muscle Modeling

Abstract

The Hill muscle model consists mainly of a contractile component (CC) in series with an elastic component (SEC) and is used widely in biomechanics and human movement science to actuate musculoskeletal models in simulations of human movement. This chapter summarizes the main features of Hill-based muscle models, including detailed treatments of the SEC force-extension relationship and the CC activation dynamics, force-length relationship, and force-velocity relationship. Additional model elements including CC pennation, parallel elasticity , history dependence, and metabolic energy expenditure are covered in brief. A contemporary summary of parameter values needed to implement muscle-specific models when creating models of the lower limb is included.