Stiffening the human foot with a biomimetic exotendon

Abstract Shoes are generally designed protect the feet against repetitive collisions with the ground, often using thick viscoelastic midsoles to add in-series compliance under the human. Recent footwear design developments have shown that this approach may also produce metabolic energy savings. Here...

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Autores principales:	Ryan C. Riddick, Dominic J. Farris, Nicholas A. T. Brown, Luke A. Kelly
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	Nature Portfolio 2021
Materias:	Medicine R Science Q
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/27f54178343649e9ac1145ff4aaef564
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:27f54178343649e9ac1145ff4aaef5642021-11-28T12:18:21ZStiffening the human foot with a biomimetic exotendon10.1038/s41598-021-02059-82045-2322https://doaj.org/article/27f54178343649e9ac1145ff4aaef5642021-11-01T00:00:00Zhttps://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-02059-8https://doaj.org/toc/2045-2322Abstract Shoes are generally designed protect the feet against repetitive collisions with the ground, often using thick viscoelastic midsoles to add in-series compliance under the human. Recent footwear design developments have shown that this approach may also produce metabolic energy savings. Here we test an alternative approach to modify the foot–ground interface by adding additional stiffness in parallel to the plantar aponeurosis, targeting the windlass mechanism. Stiffening the windlass mechanism by about 9% led to decreases in peak activation of the ankle plantarflexors soleus (~ 5%, p < 0.001) and medial gastrocnemius (~ 4%, p < 0.001), as well as a ~ 6% decrease in positive ankle work (p < 0.001) during fixed-frequency bilateral hopping (2.33 Hz). These results suggest that stiffening the foot may reduce cost in dynamic tasks primarily by reducing the effort required to plantarflex the ankle, since peak activation of the intrinsic foot muscle abductor hallucis was unchanged (p = 0.31). Because the novel exotendon design does not operate via the compression or bending of a bulky midsole, the device is light (55 g) and its profile is low enough that it can be worn within an existing shoe.Ryan C. RiddickDominic J. FarrisNicholas A. T. BrownLuke A. KellyNature PortfolioarticleMedicineRScienceQENScientific Reports, Vol 11, Iss 1, Pp 1-12 (2021)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	Medicine R Science Q
spellingShingle	Medicine R Science Q Ryan C. Riddick Dominic J. Farris Nicholas A. T. Brown Luke A. Kelly Stiffening the human foot with a biomimetic exotendon
description	Abstract Shoes are generally designed protect the feet against repetitive collisions with the ground, often using thick viscoelastic midsoles to add in-series compliance under the human. Recent footwear design developments have shown that this approach may also produce metabolic energy savings. Here we test an alternative approach to modify the foot–ground interface by adding additional stiffness in parallel to the plantar aponeurosis, targeting the windlass mechanism. Stiffening the windlass mechanism by about 9% led to decreases in peak activation of the ankle plantarflexors soleus (~ 5%, p < 0.001) and medial gastrocnemius (~ 4%, p < 0.001), as well as a ~ 6% decrease in positive ankle work (p < 0.001) during fixed-frequency bilateral hopping (2.33 Hz). These results suggest that stiffening the foot may reduce cost in dynamic tasks primarily by reducing the effort required to plantarflex the ankle, since peak activation of the intrinsic foot muscle abductor hallucis was unchanged (p = 0.31). Because the novel exotendon design does not operate via the compression or bending of a bulky midsole, the device is light (55 g) and its profile is low enough that it can be worn within an existing shoe.
format	article
author	Ryan C. Riddick Dominic J. Farris Nicholas A. T. Brown Luke A. Kelly
author_facet	Ryan C. Riddick Dominic J. Farris Nicholas A. T. Brown Luke A. Kelly
author_sort	Ryan C. Riddick
title	Stiffening the human foot with a biomimetic exotendon
title_short	Stiffening the human foot with a biomimetic exotendon
title_full	Stiffening the human foot with a biomimetic exotendon
title_fullStr	Stiffening the human foot with a biomimetic exotendon
title_full_unstemmed	Stiffening the human foot with a biomimetic exotendon
title_sort	stiffening the human foot with a biomimetic exotendon
publisher	Nature Portfolio
publishDate	2021
url	https://doaj.org/article/27f54178343649e9ac1145ff4aaef564
work_keys_str_mv	AT ryancriddick stiffeningthehumanfootwithabiomimeticexotendon AT dominicjfarris stiffeningthehumanfootwithabiomimeticexotendon AT nicholasatbrown stiffeningthehumanfootwithabiomimeticexotendon AT lukeakelly stiffeningthehumanfootwithabiomimeticexotendon
_version_	1718408065094516736

Stiffening the human foot with a biomimetic exotendon

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