Software for determining lower extremity muscle-tendon kinematics and moment arm lengths during flexion/extension movements.

A computer program was developed to calculate lower extremity muscle-tendon (MT) kinematics and flexion/extension moment arm (MA) lengths for any subject performing movements constrained to occur in the sagittal plane. The program requires as input subject anthropometric and time series ankle, knee, and hip angle data. Using these data a lower extremity link-segment model is constructed for each time element. Muscle-tendon attachment data and a straight line muscle model are used to calculate MT and flexion/extension moment arm lengths. A finite difference technique is used to determine MT shortening velocity. The utility of this program is demonstrated by calculating MT kinematics and MA lengths for six muscles of a single subject both as a function of joint angles and during gait.