TY - JOUR A1 - Mueller, Steffen A1 - Engel, Tilman A1 - Müller, Juliane A1 - Stoll, Josefine A1 - Baur, Heiner A1 - Mayer, Frank T1 - Sensorimotor exercises and enhanced trunk function BT - a randomized controlled trial JF - International journal of sports medicine N2 - The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of a 6-week sensorimotor or resistance training on maximum trunk strength and response to sudden, high-intensity loading in athletes. Interventions showed no significant difference for maximum strength in concentric and eccentric testing (p>0.05). For perturbation compensation, higher peak torque response following SMT (Extension: +24Nm 95%CI +/- 19Nm; Rotation: + 19Nm 95%CI +/- 13Nm) and RT (Extension: +35Nm 95%CI +/- 16Nm; Rotation: +5Nm 95%CI +/- 4Nm) compared to CG (Extension: -4Nm 95%CI +/- 16Nm; Rotation: -2Nm 95%CI +/- 4Nm) was present (p<0.05). KW - core KW - training intervention KW - prevention KW - perturbation KW - MiSpEx* Y1 - 2018 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1055/a-0592-7286 SN - 0172-4622 SN - 1439-3964 VL - 39 IS - 7 SP - 555 EP - 563 PB - Thieme CY - Stuttgart ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Mueller, Juliane A1 - Martinez-Valdes, Eduardo Andrés A1 - Stoll, Josefine A1 - Mueller, Steffen A1 - Engel, Tilman A1 - Mayer, Frank T1 - Differences in neuromuscular activity of ankle stabilizing muscles during postural disturbances BT - a gender-specific analysis JF - Gait & posture N2 - The purpose was to examine gender differences in ankle stabilizing muscle activation during postural disturbances. Seventeen participants (9 females: 27 +/- 2yrs., 1.69 +/- 0.1 m, 63 +/- 7 kg; 8 males: 29 +/- 2yrs., 1.81 +/- 0.1 m; 83 +/- 7 kg) were included in the study. After familiarization on a split-belt-treadmill, participants walked (1 m/s) while 15 right-sided perturbations were randomly applied 200 ms after initial heel contact. Muscle activity of M. tibialis anterior (TA), peroneus longus (PL) and gastrocnemius medialis (GM) was recorded during unperturbed and perturbed walking. The root mean square (RMS; [%]) was analyzed within 200 ms after perturbation. Co-activation was quantified as ratio of antagonist (GM)/agonist (TA) EMG-RMS during unperturbed and perturbed walking. Time to onset was calculated (ms). Data were analyzed descriptively (mean +/- SD) followed by three-way-ANOVA (gender/condition/muscle; alpha= 0.05). Perturbed walking elicited higher EMG activity compared to normal walking for TA and PL in both genders (p < 0.000). RMS amplitude gender comparisons revealed an interaction between gender and condition (F = 4.6, p = 0.049) and, a triple interaction among gender, condition and muscle (F = 4.7, p = 0.02). Women presented significantly higher EMG-RMS [%] PL amplitude than men during perturbed walking (mean difference = 209.6%, 95% confidence interval = -367.0 to -52.2%, p < 0.000). Co-activation showed significant lower values for perturbed compared to normal walking (p < 0.000), without significant gender differences for both walking conditions. GM activated significantly earlier than TA and PL (p < 0.01) without significant differences between the muscle activation onsets of men and women (p = 0.7). The results reflect that activation strategies of the ankle encompassing muscles differ between genders. In provoked stumbling, higher PL EMG activity in women compared to men is present. Future studies should aim to elucidate if this specific behavior has any relationship with ankle injury occurrence between genders. KW - Lower extremity KW - EMG KW - Perturbation KW - Split-belt treadmill KW - Ankle Y1 - 2018 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gaitpost.2018.01.023 SN - 0966-6362 SN - 1879-2219 VL - 61 SP - 226 EP - 231 PB - Elsevier CY - Clare ER - TY - GEN A1 - Molnar, Marco A1 - Kok, Manor A1 - Engel, Tilman A1 - Kaplic, Hannes A1 - Mayer, Frank A1 - Seel, Thomas T1 - A method for lower back motion assessment using wearable 6D inertial sensors T2 - 21st International Conference on Information Fusion (FUSION) N2 - Low back pain (LBP) is a leading cause of activity limitation. Objective assessment of the spinal motion plays a key role in diagnosis and treatment of LBP. We propose a method that facilitates clinical assessment of lower back motions by means of a wireless inertial sensor network. The sensor units are attached to the right and left side of the lumbar region, the pelvis and the thighs, respectively. Since magnetometers are known to be unreliable in indoor environments, we use only 3D accelerometer and 3D gyroscope readings. Compensation of integration drift in the horizontal plane is achieved by estimating the gyroscope biases from automatically detected initial rest phases. For the estimation of sensor orientations, both a smoothing algorithm and a filtering algorithm are presented. From these orientations, we determine three-dimensional joint angles between the thighs and the pelvis and between the pelvis and the lumbar region. We compare the orientations and joint angles to measurements of an optical motion tracking system that tracks each skin-mounted sensor by means of reflective markers. Eight subjects perform a neutral initial pose, then flexion/extension, lateral flexion, and rotation of the trunk. The root mean square deviation between inertial and optical angles is about one degree for angles in the frontal and sagittal plane and about two degrees for angles in the transverse plane (both values averaged over all trials). We choose five features that characterize the initial pose and the three motions. Interindividual differences of all features are found to be clearly larger than the observed measurement deviations. These results indicate that the proposed inertial sensor-based method is a promising tool for lower back motion assessment. KW - Inertial measurement units KW - joint angle estimation KW - human motion analysis KW - low back pain KW - back motion assessment KW - avoid magnetometers KW - validation against optical motion capture KW - drift correction Y1 - 2018 SN - 978-0-9964-5276-2 SP - 799 EP - 806 PB - IEEE CY - New York ER -