SUBJECT-SPECIFIC MUSCULOSKELETAL MODEL TO IDENTIFY MUSCLE CONTRIBUTION TO THE ACCELERATION PHASE IN ELITE SPRINTING

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to identify which lower limb joint moments of force and lower limb muscles had the highest contribution to the forward and upward acceleration of the Body Centre of Gravity (BCG) in an elite sprinter during the first step after starting from blocks in 100 meters dash. An induced acceleration analysis approach was used to mechanically ascertain this contribution. Two models were used, one based in a simple multilink rigid body’s model and a second using a musculoskeletal model developed using Opensim. Our results showed a possible synergist action between hip and ankle extensors that allow an optimal combination that resulted in a forward propulsion of the BCG, this results seem to be corroborated using an Opensim musculoskeletal model.