The use of mechanical vibrations has become a very common technique in the training of athletes. Some studies highlight that this kind of training is able to increase the force of the muscles, but is seems to decrease the capacity of controlling the movements by the subject. This aspect could increase the risk of ACL injuries. The aim of this project is to develop a computational model to analyze how a warming up with mechanical vibrations can a ect the biomechanical behavior of the lower limbs, with a particular attention to the aspects related to the noncontact ACL injuries. For this purpose, a lower limb model is implemented using the OpenSim software (Stanford University) to obtain the evolution of joint angles, joint torques and muscle forces during a sidestep cutting maneuver (before and after warming up). Those results are obtained by means of multibody dynamics and optimization techniques. The work also includes an economic study and an analysis of the social and environmental impact.

Incoming