A four-compartment controller model of muscle fatigue for static and dynamic tasks

Compartment based models of muscle fatigue have been particularly successful in accurately modeling isometric (static) tasks or actions. However, dynamic actions, which make up most everyday movements, are governed by different central and peripheral processes, and must therefore be modeled in a manner accounting for the differences in the responsible mechanisms. In the literature, a three-component controller (3CC) muscle fatigue model (MFM) has been proposed and validated for static tasks. A recent study reported a four-compartment muscle fatigue model considering both short- and long-term fatigued states. However, neither has been validated for both static and dynamic tasks.

In this work we proposed a new four-compartment controller model of muscle fatigue with enhanced recovery (4CCr) that allows the modeling of central and peripheral fatigue separately and estimates strength decline for static and dynamic tasks. Joint velocity was used as an indicator of the degree of contribution of either mechanism. Model parameters were estimated from part of the experimental data and finally, the model was validated through the rest of experimental data that were not used for parameter estimation.

The 3CC model cannot capture the fatigue phenomenon that the velocity of contraction would affect isometric strength measurements as shown in experimental data. The new 4CCr model maintains the predictions of the extensively validated 3CC model for static tasks but provides divergent predictions for isokinetic activities (increasing fatigue with increasing velocity) in line with experimentally observed trends. This new 4CCr model can be extended to various domains such as individual muscle fatigue, motor units' fatigue, and joint-based fatigue.