Estimates of individual muscle power production in normal adult walking.
Ross A Bogey, Lee A Barnes
PMID 28893285WHAT IT FOUND
In healthy adult men walking at their usual speed, a model estimated individual hip muscle power, and its total hip power mostly matched hip joint power but differed in late stance and swing.
Key findings
01The model's total hip power estimates were close enough to the hip joint power calculated from motion and force plates to be accepted for this study.
02Semimembranosus produced the largest single-muscle hip power values, positive in early stance and negative in swing.
03Individual hip muscles showed different timing: gluteus medius produced positive power in single support, rectus femoris produced negative power from stance to swing, and iliopsoas produced positive power in hip flexion.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they found
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What it does not show
The study analysed 18 healthy adult men, so it does not show how these estimates apply to women, older adults, children, or people with movement disorders. The analysis used only the right leg because the authors treated normal adult walking as symmetric. Direct muscle power measurement was not possible, so the model was checked against inverse dynamics, which itself cannot uniquely separate individual muscle contributions. Passive hip power could not be measured directly and was estimated from literature values, so uncertainty remains. The model could not separate the power of bi-articular muscles such as rectus femoris between the hip and knee. Maximum voluntary contraction tests may not have been true maximum efforts, which could overestimate muscle force and power. Some small deep hip muscles were not included, and Adductor Magnus was modelled as one muscle from a posterior electrode site, which may slightly overestimate its power. The two methods agreed overall but differed at specific gait phases, so the estimates are not identical at every point.
The easy way to misread this
Do not use these hip muscle power estimates to choose a treatment target for a patient. The study measured 18 healthy adult men and compared two calculation methods, not clinical outcomes.