Estimation of tibialis anterior muscle stiffness during the swing phase of walking with various footwear

The current study examined stiffness in the tibialis anterior muscle during the swing phase of walking while wearing various footwear. Seven healthy young men participated in this study. Participants were instructed to walk on a treadmill at 3 km/h while wearing sports shoes, slippers, or slippers with belts. The common peroneal nerve was electrically stimulated every two steps at toe-off during walking. Mechanomyograms (MMGs), electromyograms, and ankle angle were measured. Evoked MMG was extracted using a Kalman filter and subtraction of walking acceleration. The transfer function from the electrical stimulation to the evoked MMG was identified using a singular value decomposition method, and the natural frequency of the transfer function was calculated as an index of muscle stiffness. The natural frequency did not show a clear relationship with footwear type. Four participants showed the lowest natural frequency when they wore slippers with belts. The remaining subjects showed the lowest natural frequency when they wore slippers or shoes. These contrasting findings may have been caused by different degrees of adaptation of participants to the footwear.