Aim

To evaluate the activity of knee stabilizing muscles while using custom-made biomechanical footwear (BF) and to compare it when walking barefoot and with a knee brace (Unloader®).

Methods

Seventeen healthy working-aged (mean age: 29 years; standard deviation: 8 years) individuals participated. The knee brace was worn on the right knee and BF in both legs. Surface electromyography (sEMG) data was recorded bilaterally from vastus medialis (VM), semitendinosus (ST), tibialis anterior (TA) and lateral gastrocnemius (LG) muscles during walking, and repeated-measures ANOVA with a post-hoc t-test was used to determine differences between the different walking modalities (barefoot, brace and BF).

Results

Averaged sEMG was significantly higher when walking with BF than barefoot or knee brace in the ST muscles, in the right LG, and left TA muscle. It was significantly lower when walking with the brace compared to barefoot in the right ST and LG muscles, and left TA muscle. Analysis of the ensemble-averaged sEMG profiles showed earlier activation of TA muscles when walking with BF compared to other walking modalities.

Conclusion

BF produced greater activation in evaluated lower leg muscles compared to barefoot walking. Thus BF may have an exercise effect in rehabilitation and further studies about its effectiveness are warranted.

中文翻译：

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与膝关节支撑和正常步行相比，生物力学鞋类对大腿和小腿肌肉活动的影响

目的

在使用定制的生物机械鞋（BF）时评估膝盖稳定肌肉的活动，并与在赤脚行走和膝盖支撑的情况下进行比较（Unloader®）。

方法

参加调查的有17个健康的工作年龄（平均年龄：29岁；标准差：8岁）。右膝和双脚BF都戴上了护膝。在行走过程中分别从腓肠肌（VM），半腱肌（S​​T），胫骨前（TA）和腓肠肌（LG）肌肉的两侧记录表面肌电图（sEMG）数据，并采用事后t检验进行重复测量ANOVA。用于确定不同步行方式（赤脚，支撑和BF）之间的差异。

结果

用BF行走时，平均sEMG显着高于ST肌肉，右LG和左TA肌肉的赤脚或膝盖支撑。与右脚ST和LG肌肉以及左TA肌肉的赤脚相比，用支架行走时，它明显更低。对整体平均sEMG曲线的分析显示，与其他行走方式相比，使用BF行走时，TA肌肉的激活更早。

结论

与赤脚行走相比，BF在评估的小腿肌肉中产生更大的活化作用。因此，BF在康复中可能具有锻炼作用，因此有必要对其有效性进行进一步研究。