Department of Kinesiology, University of Physical Education, Alkotás u. 44, Budapest, 1123, Hungary.
Semmelweis University, MR Research Centre, Budapest, Hungary.
Sci Rep. 2020 Oct 21;10(1):17870. doi: 10.1038/s41598-020-73742-5.
The human ankle joint and plantar flexor muscle-tendon unit play an important role in endurance running. It has been assumed that muscle and tendon interactions and their biomechanical behaviours depend on their morphological and architectural characteristics. We aimed to study how plantar flexor muscle characteristics influence marathon running performance and to determine whether there is any difference in the role of the soleus and gastrocnemii. The right lower leg of ten male distance runners was scanned with magnetic resonance imagining. The cross-sectional areas of the Achilles tendon, soleus, and lateral and medial gastrocnemius were measured, and the muscle volumes were calculated. Additional ultrasound scanning was used to estimate the fascicle length of each muscle to calculate the physiological cross-sectional area. Correlations were found between marathon running performance and soleus volume (r = 0.55, p = 0.048), soleus cross-sectional area (r = 0.57, p = 0.04), soleus physiological cross-sectional area (PCSA-IAAF r = 0.77, p < 0.01, CI± 0.28 to 0.94), Achilles tendon thickness (r = 0.65, p < 0.01), and soleus muscle-to-tendon ratio (r = 0.68, p = 0.03). None of the gastrocnemius characteristics were associated with marathon performance. We concluded that a larger soleus muscle with a thicker Achilles tendon is associated with better marathon performance. Based on these results, it can be concluded the morphological characteristics of the lower leg muscle-tendon unit correlate with running performance.
人类踝关节和跖屈肌-肌腱单元在耐力跑中起着重要作用。人们一直认为，肌肉和肌腱的相互作用及其生物力学行为取决于它们的形态和结构特征。我们旨在研究跖屈肌特征如何影响马拉松跑步表现，并确定比目鱼肌和腓肠肌的作用是否存在差异。使用磁共振成像对 10 名男性长跑运动员的右小腿进行扫描。测量跟腱、比目鱼肌和外侧及内侧腓肠肌的横截面积，并计算肌肉体积。还使用额外的超声扫描来估计每个肌肉的肌束长度，以计算生理横截面积。马拉松跑步表现与比目鱼肌体积（r=0.55，p=0.048）、比目鱼肌横截面积（r=0.57，p=0.04）、比目鱼肌生理横截面积（IAAF r=0.77，p<0.01，CI±0.28 至 0.94）、跟腱厚度（r=0.65，p<0.01）和比目鱼肌-肌腱比（r=0.68，p=0.03）呈正相关。腓肠肌的任何特征都与马拉松表现无关。我们得出的结论是，较大的比目鱼肌和较厚的跟腱与更好的马拉松表现相关。基于这些结果，可以得出结论，小腿肌肉-肌腱单元的形态特征与跑步表现相关。
