title: Body size and lower limb posture during walking in humans.
abstract: We test whether locomotor posture is associated with body mass and lower limb length in humans and explore how body size and posture affect net joint moments during walking. We acquired gait data for 24 females and 25 males using a three-dimensional motion capture system and pressure-measuring insoles. We employed the general linear model and commonality analysis to assess the independent effect of body mass and lower limb length on flexion angles at the hip, knee, and ankle while controlling for sex and velocity. In addition, we used inverse dynamics to model the effect of size and posture on net joint moments. At early stance, body mass has a negative effect on knee flexion (p < 0.01), whereas lower limb length has a negative effect on hip flexion (p < 0.05). Body mass uniquely explains 15.8% of the variance in knee flexion, whereas lower limb length uniquely explains 5.4% of the variance in hip flexion. Both of the detected relationships between body size and posture are consistent with the moment moderating postural adjustments predicted by our model. At late stance, no significant relationship between body size and posture was detected. Humans of greater body size reduce the flexion of the hip and knee at early stance, which results in the moderation of net moments at these joints.
authors.affiliation: Department of Anthropology and Human Genetics, Faculty of Science, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic.
authors.forename: Martin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Hora
authors.affiliation: CASRI - Sports Research Institute of Czech Armed Forces, Prague, Czech Republic.
authors.forename: Libor
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Soumar
authors.affiliation: Department of Anthropology, Hunter College, New York, New York, United States of America.
authors.forename: Herman
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Pontzer
authors.affiliation: Department of Anthropology and Human Genetics, Faculty of Science, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic.
authors.forename: Vladimír
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Sládek
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000465:Algorithms; D000842:Ankle / Q000502:physiology; D000843:Ankle Joint / Q000502:physiology; D001696:Biomechanical Phenomena; D015992:Body Mass Index; D049628:Body Size / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D005684:Gait / Q000502:physiology; D006621:Hip Joint / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D007717:Knee / Q000502:physiology; D007719:Knee Joint / Q000502:physiology; D016014:Linear Models; D035002:Lower Extremity / Q000502:physiology*; D008297:Male; D008954:Models, Biological; D011187:Posture / Q000502:physiology*; D016059:Range of Motion, Articular / Q000502:physiology; D016138:Walking / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult