title: Modeling of skeletal muscle: the influence of tendon and aponeuroses compliance on the force-length relationship.
abstract: The aim of this study was to investigate the influence of changing elastic properties of tendon and aponeuroses on force production and muscle geometry. A three-dimensional, structural, continuum mechanics model of the cat medial gastrocnemius was used for this purpose. Increasing compliance in tendon and aponeuroses caused a decrease in the peak isometric force and a shift of the force-length relationship to the right of the length axis (i.e. toward greater muscle lengths). This result can be explained with the stability condition of the force-length relationship which produced a history dependence of force production that is conceptually in agreement with experimental observations.
authors.affiliation: Department of Computer Science, University of Caxias do Sul, Caxias do Sul, RS, Brazil. rrlemos@ucs.br
authors.forename: R R
authors.initials: RR
authors.lastname: Lemos
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Epstein
authors.forename: W
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Herzog
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002415:Cats; D003198:Computer Simulation; D004548:Elasticity; D008954:Models, Biological; D009119:Muscle Contraction / Q000502:physiology*; D018482:Muscle, Skeletal / Q000502:physiology*; D013710:Tendons / Q000502:physiology*