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Updated: Jul 18, 2025

Bilateral Assessment of the Corticospinal Pathways of the Ankle Muscles Using Navigated Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation

Bilateral Assessment of the Corticospinal Pathways of the Ankle Muscles Using Navigated Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation

Published on: February 19, 2019

Muscle activity during crouched walking.

Martin Hora¹, Michal Struška¹, Zuzana Matějovská¹

¹Department of Anthropology and Human Genetics, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic.

American Journal of Biological Anthropology

|August 22, 2023

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

Lowering body height during walking increases lower limb muscle activity, particularly in thigh and gluteal muscles. This suggests crouched walking may reduce fatigue, potentially aiding in approach hunting strategies.

Keywords:

approach hunting electromyography kinematics posture stature

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Area of Science:

Biomechanics
Human Evolution
Anthropology

Background:

Crouched walking has been studied concerning hominin bipedalism and movement disorders.
Its potential role in approach hunting, where reduced postural height is advantageous, is less explored.

Purpose of the Study:

To analyze the relationship between relative postural height, kinematics, and lower limb muscle activity during crouched walking.
To investigate the implications for approach hunting and identifying past human locomotion.

Main Methods:

Nineteen adult males performed walking trials with extended limbs and at three crouch angles.
3D motion capture and electromyography recorded kinematics and muscle activation (tibialis anterior, soleus, gastrocnemius, vastus lateralis, rectus femoris, biceps femoris, gluteus maximus).
Linear mixed effects models analyzed the effects of postural height.

Main Results:

Increased crouch (lower relative postural height) correlated with greater flexion angles and overall muscle activation (except medial gastrocnemius).
Thigh and gluteal muscles showed a stronger response to reduced postural height than shank muscles.

Conclusions:

Higher muscle activation at lower postural heights suggests reduced fatigue, potentially benefiting hunters.
Differential activation patterns of thigh/gluteal versus shank muscles may indicate crouched walking in ancestral populations.