A simple geometrical model accounting for 3D muscle architectural changes across muscle lengths

Muscle architecture parameters change when the muscle changes in length. This has multiple effects on the function of the muscle, e.g. on force production and on contraction velocity. Here we present a versatile geometrical model that predicts changes in muscle architecture as a consequence of length changes of the muscle on the basis of the known architecture at a given muscle length. The model accounts for small changes in aponeuroses' dimensions relative to changes in fascicle length and keeps muscle volume constant. We evaluate the model on the rabbit soleus muscle by comparing model predictions of fascicle lengths and pennation angles with experimental data. For this, we determined the internal architecture of the soleus muscle at different muscle belly lengths (67.8 mm at 35° ankle angle and 59.3 mm at 80° ankle angle). The long and the short soleus muscle exhibited mean fascicle lengths and pennation angles of 20.8 ± 1.3 mm, 4 ± 2° and 13.5 ± 1 mm, 10 ± 4°, respectively. The model predicted reasonable mean fascicle lengths and pennation angles for the long and short soleus that differed only by 1 mm and 1° from the measured data, respectively. Differences between predicted and measured distributions seem to stem from interindividual variability in muscle architecture. Even if the proposed approach has been used for the soleus muscle, which is relatively simple in architecture, it is not restricted to homogeneous unipennate architectures.