Functional relevance of the small muscles crossing the ankle joint

NewsBot · Feb 28, 2017

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Functional relevance of the small muscles crossing the ankle joint – the bottom-up
approach.
Nigg, B. M., Bailch, J., Federolf, P., Manz, S. & Nigg, S.
Current Issues in Sport Science, 2:003. 2017

It has been suggested that increasing muscle strength could help reducing the frequency of running
injuries and that a top-down approach using an increase in hip muscle strength will result in a
reduced range of movement and reduced external moments at the knee and ankle level. This paper
suggests, that a bottom-up approach using an increase of strength of the small muscles crossing
the ankle joint, should reduce movement and loading at the ankle, knee and hip. This bottom-up
approach is discussed in detail in this paper from a conceptional point of view. The ankle joint has
two relatively “large” extrinsic muscles and seven relatively small extrinsic muscles. The large muscles
have large levers for plantar-dorsi flexion but small levers for pro-supination. In the absence of strong
small muscles the large muscles are loaded substantially when providing balancing with respect to
pro-supination. Specifically, the Achilles tendon will be loaded in this situation asymmetrically with
high local stresses. Furthermore, a mechanical model with springs shows that (a) the amplitude of
the displacement with the strong small springs is smaller and (b) that the loading in the joints of the
springs is substantially smaller for the model with the strong small springs. Additionally, strong and
active small muscles crossing the ankle joint provide stability for the ankle joint (base). If they are
weak, forces in the ankle, knee and hip joint increase substantially due to multiple co-contractions
at the joints. Finally, movement transfer between foot and tibia is high for movements induced from
the bottom and small for movements induced from the top. Based on these considerations one
should speculate that the bottom-up approach may be substantially more effective in preventing
running injuries than the top down approach. Various possible strategies to strengthen the small
muscles of the ankle joint are presented.
Click to expand...

Craig Payne · Feb 28, 2017

Have heard Beno Nigg talk about this a lot and the 'springs'. It finally makes more sense reading the above.

mike weber · Mar 1, 2017

and who doesn´t love modelling human gait and muscle systems using springs, and the link give us the full text :)

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