Tibialis Anterior Mucle Activity

Hi AnyBody Community,

I am a user of AnyBody version 7.3 and am currently working on a squat activity using the marker-based full-body motion capture model (AMMR 2.3.1 MoCapModel). I have encountered an issue where the Tibialis Anterior muscle activity is almost zero (e^-13) during the activity.

I have also tested the squat example provided in the AMMR, and the Tibialis Anterior muscle activity remains almost zero there as well.

Could you please provide some advice or suggestions on how to address this problem? If you need additional information or if my question needs further clarification, please let me know.

Thank you for your assistance.

Sincerely,
Mehmet YILMAZ

Hi Mehmet,

Normally, the tibialis anterior is not a primary muscle involved in squats. It's role is more of a stabilizer. Unfortunately, the stabilizing effect can't really be captured so well in the muscle recruitment formulation.

One scenario in which the tibialis anterior will be activated in the model is if you simulate a deep squat and your weight tends to be more on the posterior side. I think the mocap squat model in the AMMR doesn't do a deep squat. You can instead see the synthetic squat model to simulate a deeper squat motion. Then you would see activation of the tibialis anterior.

Best regards,
Dave

Dear Dave,
Thank you very much for your feedback. I appreciate your insights and suggestions.
I have adjusted the maximum knee angle from 100 to 140 degrees, which has resulted in activation of the Tibialis Anterior muscle. However, the activation periods and activation graphs from the simulation still do not align with the experimental results.
Additionally, I have analyzed deep squats using a marker-based full-body motion capture model (AMMR 2.3.1 MoCapModel) with data from 10 subjects (averaged maximum knee angle of 137 degrees). Despite this, the Tibialis Anterior muscle activity remains almost zero.
Is it possible to simulate the model using experimental EMG data and marker data as input?Any guidance or recommendations you can provide on how to integrate EMG data into the simulation would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you once again for your assistance.

Sincerely,
Mehmet YILMAZ

Hi Mehmet,

You could try playing around with different muscle recruitment, but it most likely won't solve the issue. I believe you would have tried that already.

You can use the experimental EMG as an input. You can use the class AnyMuscleActivityBound to create upper and lower bounds on the muscle. You can feed in the EMG data through an interpolation function and add some offset to create an upper and lower bound on the same muscle.

Best regards,
Dave