An Analysis of Leg Muscle Stretch Using 3D Digital Image Correlation

Abstract

Sural region is called as the bottom heart of the body since it is essential for the maintenance of venous circulatory adequacy during upright posture and activity. Previous research has found that ankle joint equinus can lead to foot pathologies. The paper presents a generic methodology to compute the strain pattern in the Sural and calcaneal region during leg dorsiflexion experiment. In the experiment, the subject is made to stand on an inclination plane and images are captured at varying angular inclinations. Strain plots obtained after comparison indicates the strain distribution in the posterior compartment of sural and calcaneal regions. The experiment is then repeated for four other participants and the trends are observed. VIC-3D is used to determine the strain distribution on two important superficial components of the leg region, namely the Sural and calcaneal regions, subjected to varied degrees of foot dorsiflexion. The experiment is extremely important as the primary knowledge gained will assists us to generate muscle-tendon units which can result into better understanding of the force and energy production. Moreover, this exercise can be used to regulate the blood circulation and avoid the syndrome mentioned above.