Dynamics of longitudinal arch support in relation to walking speed: contribution of the plantar apon

NewsBot · Jul 23, 2010

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Dynamics of longitudinal arch support in relation to walking speed: contribution of the plantar aponeurosis.
Caravaggi P, Pataky T, Günther M, Savage R, Crompton R.
J Anat. 2010 Jul 14. [Epub ahead of print]

The plantar aponeurosis (PA), in spanning the whole length of the plantar aspect of the foot, is clearly identified as one of the key structures that is likely to affect compliance and stability of the longitudinal arch. A recent study performed in our laboratory showed that tension/elongation in the PA can be predicted from the kinematics of the segments to which the PA is attached. In the present investigation, stereophotogrammetry and inverse kinematics were employed to shed light on the mechanics of the longitudinal arch and its main passive stabilizer, the PA, in relation to walking speed. When compared with a neutral unloaded position, the medial longitudinal arch underwent greater collapse during the weight-acceptance phase of stance at higher walking speed (0.1 degrees +/-1.9 degrees in slow walking; 0.9 degrees +/-2.6 degrees in fast walking; P = 0.0368). During late stance the arch was higher (3.4 degrees +/-3.1 degrees in slow walking; 2.8 degrees +/-2.7 degrees in fast walking; P = 0.0227) and the metatarsophalangeal joints more dorsiflexed (e.g. at the first metatarsophalangeal joint, 52 degrees +/-5 degrees in slow walking; 64 degrees +/-4 degrees in fast walking; P < 0.001) during fast walking. Early-stance tension in the PA increased with speed, whereas maximum tension during late stance did not seem to be significantly affected by walking speed. Although, on the one hand, these results give evidence for the existence of a pre-heel-strike, speed-dependent, arch-stiffening mechanism, on the other hand they suggest that augmentation of arch height in late stance is enhanced by higher forces exerted by the intrinsic muscles on the plantar aspect of the foot when walking at faster speeds.
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Admin2 · Jul 23, 2010

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Other threads tagged with windlass mechanism

NewsBot · Sep 16, 2010

Relative contributions of plantar fascia and ligaments on the arch static stability: a finite element study.
Tao K, Ji WT, Wang DM, Wang CT, Wang X.
Biomed Tech (Berl). 2010 Sep 15.

The plantar fascia (PF) and major ligaments play important roles in keeping the static foot arch structure. Their functions and relative contributions to the arch stability have not been well studied. A three-dimensional finite element foot model was created based on the reconstruction of magnetic resonance images. During balanced standing, four cases after individual releases of the PF, spring ligament (SL), and long and short plantar ligaments (LPL and SPL) were simulated, to compare their biomechanical consequences with the normal predictions under the intact structure. Although the predictions showed the arch did not collapse obviously after each structure sectioning, the internal mechanical behaviors changed considerably. The PF release resulted in the maximal increases of approximately 91%, 65% and 47% in the tensions of the LPF, SPL and SL, produced the largest changes in all bone rotations, and brought an obvious shift of high stress from the medial metatarsals to the lateral metatarsals. The SL release mainly enhanced bone rotation angles and weakened the joint stability of the arch structure. The LPL and the SPL performed the roles of mutual compensation as either one was released. The influence of the LPL on the load distribution among metatarsals was greater than for the SPL and the SL.
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NewsBot · Oct 11, 2013

The effect of foot compliance encoded in the windlass mechanism on the energetics of human walking.
Song S, Lamontagna C, Collins SH, Geyer H.
Conf Proc IEEE Eng Med Biol Soc. 2013 Jul;2013:3179-3182.

The human foot, which is the part of the body that interacts with the environment during locomotion, consists of rich biomechanical design. One of the unique designs of human feet is the windlass mechanism. In a previous simulation study, we found that the windlass mechanism seems to improve the energy efficiency of walking. To better understand the origin of this efficiency, we here conduct both simulation and experimental studies exploring the influence of foot compliance, which is one of the functionalities that the windlass mechanism embeds, on the energetics of walking. The studies show that walking with compliant feet incurs more energetic costs than walking with stiff feet. The preliminary results suggest that the energy saved by introducing the windlass mechanism does not originate from the compliance it embeds. We speculate that the energy savings of the windlass mechanism are related more to its contribution to reducing the effective foot length in swing than to providing compliance in stance.
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NewsBot · May 29, 2018

The influence of gait and speed on the dynamic navicular drop – A cross sectional study on healthy subjects
J. Pohla, T. Jaspersa, M. Ferraroa, F. Krausec, H. Baura, P. Eichelbergera, b, ,
The Foot; 25 May 2018

Highlights
•Implementation of a 4-marker foot model to evaluate navicular drop (ND)
•Magnitudes of static ND are not reflected in dynamic ND measures
•The gait style, running or walking, has a large effect on the ND
•Increasing ND in running and decreasing ND in walking for increasing gait speed
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Introduction:
Variations of gait speed influence kinematic variables that may have an effect on dynamic foot deformation. The influence of gait speed on the navicular drop has not yet been investigated.

Methods:
The navicular drop was evaluated in static and dynamic conditions using a 3D-motion capture system. The dynamic navicular drop was evaluated on a treadmill while walking and running at three different speeds. A repeated measures ANOVA and post-hoc tests were conducted to evaluate the differences in dynamic navicular drop, corresponding unloaded navicular height at foot strike and loaded navicular height during stance.

Results:
Higher walking speed led to a significant decrease in navicular height at foot strike and a subsequent decrease of dynamic navicular drop (p = 0.006). Across increasing running speeds, minimum navicular height was significantly decreased which in consequence led to an increased dynamic navicular drop (p = 0.015). For walking and running at the same speed, there was a large effect of gait style with an increase of dynamic navicular drop by 3.5 mm (p < 0.001) during running.

Discussion:
The change of gait from walking to running at the same speed had a large effect on dynamic navicular drop. The values of navicular height at foot strike and minimum navicular height during stance should be taken into account for the interpretation of dynamic navicular drop measures. Static and dynamic navicular drop measures differ substantially.
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