Squat Lifting Imposes Higher Peak Joint and Muscle Loading Compared to Stoop Lifting

Abstract

(1) Background: Yearly, more than 40% of the European employees suffer from work-related musculoskeletal disorders. Still, ergonomic guidelines defining optimal lifting techniques to decrease work-related musculoskeletal disorders (WMSDs) has not been unambiguously defined. Therefore, this study investigates if recommended squat lifting imposes lower musculoskeletal loading than stoop lifting while using a complex full body musculoskeletal OpenSim model. (2) Methods: Ten healthy participants lifted two different weights using both lifting techniques. 3D marker trajectories and ground reaction forces were used as input to calculate joint angles, moments and power using a full body musculoskeletal model with articulated lumbar spine. In addition, the muscle activity of nine different muscles was measured to investigate muscle effort when lifting. (3) Results: Peak moments and peak joint power in L5S1 were not different between the squat and the stoop, but higher peak moments and peak power in the hip, knee, elbow and shoulder were found during squat lifting. Moment impulses in L5S1 were higher during stoop lifting. This is reflected in higher peak electromyography (EMG) but lower muscle effort in prior described muscles during the squat. (4) Conclusions: Squat lifting imposes higher peak full body musculoskeletal loading but similar low back loading compared to stoop lifting, as reflected in peak moments, peak power, and peak EMG.

An approximate stochastic optimal control framework to simulate nonlinear neuro-musculoskeletal models in the presence of noise

“…An agonist-antagonist couple of Hill-type muscles with rigid tendons actuated each joint. The muscle properties (maximal isometric force , tendon slack length , optimal fiber length , optimal pennation angle α, damping coefficient β; described in table 3) were based on the biceps brachialis, triceps, anterior deltoid and posterior deltoid of a full-body musculoskeletal OpenSim model [87], [88]. We adapted some muscle parameters to compensate for the absence of other (bi-articular) muscles by changing the relation between joint angles moment-arms and by adapting the force-length relation such that the muscles could generate force throughout the full range of the reaching movement.…”

“…Muscle-tendon lengths were approximated by the sum of a linear function, a sine, and a constant offset ( = • + • sin( • ) + ) with a, b, c and d estimated by minimizing the least square error between this approximation and the muscle lengths obtained from the upper-arm in a previously developed OpenSim model [88]. The moment-arms are computed as the derivatives of the musclelengths with respect to the angle: = + • • cos( • ) [78].…”

Special Issue on “Human Health Engineering”

“…Contributions can focus on sensors, wearable hardware, algorithms, or integrated monitoring systems. We organized the different papers according to their contributions to the main parts of the monitoring and control engineering scheme applied to human health applications, namely papers focusing on measuring/sensing of physiological variables [24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31], contributions describing research on the modelling of biological signals [32][33][34][35][36][37][38], papers highlighting health monitoring applications [39][40][41][42], and finally examples of control applications for human health [43][44][45][46][47][48]. In comparison to biomedical engineering, we envision that the field of human health engineering also covers applications on healthy humans (e.g., sports, sleep, and stress) and thus not only contributes to develop technology for curing patients or supporting chronically ill people, but also for disease prevention and optimizing human well-being more generally.…”

“…In their work, van der Have et al [28] studied the effect of squat lifting versus stoop lifting in terms of joint and muscle loading when handling heavy materials. Their study demonstrates that squat lifting imposes higher peak full body musculoskeletal loading compared to stoop lifting, but similar lower back loading, which is an important factor in work-related musculoskeletal disorders (WMSDs).…”

From Stoop to Squat: A Comprehensive Analysis of Lumbar Loading Among Different Lifting Styles

“… Van Dieën et al (1999) concluded in their review that there was not enough evidence to support advocating the squat technique as a means of preventing LBP. In addition, more recent research suggests that differences in spinal loads among various lifting styles are relatively small and a straight back (spine in a neutral position) might not always be the optimal position ( Kingma et al, 2010 ; Wang et al, 2012 ; Dreischarf et al, 2016 ; van der Have et al, 2019 ; Khoddam-Khorasani et al, 2020 ). Some suggest that a single optimal position for all situations does not exist ( Burgess-Limerick, 2003 ) and that the lifting technique should be adapted to the lifted weight ( Wang et al, 2012 ).…”