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How muscle function changes with
frequency in vertical human hopping
1. Tell us about you:
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Craig McGowan, Anne Gutmann – Comparative Neuromuscular Biomechanics Lab
University of Idaho
2. Big Picture Motivation:
The specific aims of the project are to determine muscle-tendon dynamics and
metabolic energy use for individual leg muscles across a wide range of hopping
frequencies. Based on ultrasound data which show that humans hold their
gastrocnemius muscle nearly isometric when hopping at 2 hops s-1, we hypothesize that
humans prefer to hop at a frequency that minimizes muscle work by maximizing the
elastic energy stored and returned by the proximal tendons of the legs and feet and
that this, in turn, minimizes metabolic cost/height at the preferred hopping frequency.
3. Workshop Goal:
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Create a 2-D simulation of vertical human hopping for one hopping frequency
using the standard human model available in OpenSim.
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Analyze the muscle-tendon dynamics and metabolic energy use of individual
muscles using metabolic probes.
OpenSim Workshop August 2013