Study of muscle fiber strains at different foot positions can reveal the dependence of muscle force on muscle architecture. Prior studies of isometric contraction in calf muscle using dynamic MRI revealed in the medial gastrocnemius (MG), strain heterogeneity along and across fibers, constant in-plane areas, and gear ratios decreasing with unloading. This study examines correlation of fiber strains in the MG at three-foot positions and two sub-maximal isometric contractions with fiber directions extracted from DTI. The plantarflexed foot position had the highest normalized fiber strain (to force and to torque) while the dorsiflexed position had the lowest normalized fiber strains.
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