Resultant knee joint moments for lateral movement tasks on sliding and non-sliding sport surfaces

The aim of this study was to compare ankle and knee joint moments observed when playing on sport surfaces that slide slightly relative to the ground with the moments observed when playing on conventional sport surfaces. Three-dimensional resultant internal joint moments and kinematic characteristics of the lower extremity were quantified for 21 university basketball players when performing v-cut and side-shuffle tasks on three types of sliding surface (interlocking tiles) and on two types of conventional surface (maple wood and rolled vinyl). Translational and rotational friction between the five test surfaces and a test shoe were also quantified. The five sport surfaces moved horizontally between 0.2 and 1.6 mm during the landing phase of the two tasks. The medio-lateral ground reaction forces were lowest for the surfaces with the highest horizontal movement. Resultant ankle joint moments were lower and resultant knee moments were higher on the sliding surfaces than the conventional surfaces. Sport surfaces that allow a few millimetres of horizontal movement during ground contact may reduce joint loading at the ankle joint, but increase joint loading at the knee joint, when compared with conventional sport surfaces, and thus may influence the prevalence of knee injuries

Muscle fibre recruitment can respond to the mechanics of the muscle contraction

This study investigates the motor unit recruitment patterns between and within muscles of the triceps surae during cycling on a stationary ergometer at a range of pedal speeds and resistances. Muscle activity was measured from the soleus (SOL), medial gastrocnemius (MG) and lateral gastrocnemius (LG) using surface electromyography (EMG) and quantified using wavelet and principal component analysis. Muscle fascicle strain rates were quantified using ultrasonography, and the muscle–tendon unit lengths were calculated from the segmental kinematics. The EMG intensities showed that the body uses the SOL relatively more for the higher-force, lower-velocity contractions than the MG and LG. The EMG spectra showed a shift to higher frequencies at faster muscle fascicle strain rates for MG: these shifts were independent of the level of muscle activity, the locomotor load and the muscle fascicle strain. These results indicated that a selective recruitment of the faster motor units occurred within the MG muscle in response to the increasing muscle fascicle strain rates. This preferential recruitment of the faster fibres for the faster tasks indicates that in some circumstances motor unit recruitment during locomotion can match the contractile properties of the muscle fibres to the mechanical demands of the contraction