Williams Alison M M, Sato-Klemm Maya, Deegan Emily G, Eginyan Gevorg, Lam Tania
School of Kinesiology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada.
International Collaboration on Repair Discoveries, Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute, Vancouver, BC, Canada.
Front Hum Neurosci. 2022 Jun 30;16:912839. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2022.912839. eCollection 2022.
The pelvic floor muscles (PFM) are active during motor tasks that increase intra-abdominal pressure, but little is known about how the PFM respond to dynamic activities, such as gait. The purpose of this study was to characterize and compare PFM activity during walking and jogging in continent adults across the entire gait cycle.
17 able-bodied individuals (8 females) with no history of incontinence participated in this study. We recorded electromyography (EMG) from the abdominal muscles, gluteus maximus (GM), and PFM while participants performed attempted maximum voluntary contractions (aMVC) of all muscles and completed 60-70 strides in four gait conditions: slow walk (1 km/h); regular walk (self-selected comfortable pace); transition walk (self-selected fastest walking pace); jog (same speed as transition walking). We quantified activity throughout the whole gait cycle (%aMVC) and during periods of bursting (%aMVC) for each participant, and analyzed the timing of PFM bursting periods to explore when the PFM were most active in the gait cycle. We also conducted a phase metric analysis on the PFM and GM burst timings. We performed a Spearman's rank-order correlation to examine the effect of speed on %aMVC, %aMVC, and phase metric score, and used the Wilcoxon Signed-Rank test to evaluate the effect of gait modality, matched for speed (walking vs. jogging), on these variables.
The PFM were active throughout the gait cycle, with bursts typically occurring during single-leg support. The PFM and GM were in phase for 44-69% of the gait cycle, depending on condition. There was a positive correlation between gait speed and both %aMVC and %aMVC ( < 0.001). Phase metric scores were significantly higher during jogging than transition walking ( = 0.005), but there was no difference between gait modality on %aMVC or %aMVC ( = 0.059). Where possible we disaggregated data by sex, although were unable to make statistical comparisons due to low sample sizes.
The PFM are active during walking and jogging, with greater activity at faster speeds and with bursts in activity around single-leg support. The PFM and GM co-activate during gait, but are not completely in phase with each other.
盆底肌（PFM）在增加腹内压的运动任务中会被激活，但对于其如何响应动态活动（如步态）却知之甚少。本研究的目的是描述并比较在整个步态周期中，尿失禁成年个体在行走和慢跑时盆底肌的活动情况。
17名无尿失禁病史的身体健全个体（8名女性）参与了本研究。在参与者对所有肌肉进行最大自主收缩尝试（aMVC）以及在四种步态条件下完成60 - 70步的过程中，我们记录了腹部肌肉、臀大肌（GM）和盆底肌的肌电图（EMG）：慢走（1公里/小时）；正常行走（自我选择的舒适步速）；过渡行走（自我选择的最快行走步速）；慢跑（与过渡行走相同速度）。我们对每个参与者在整个步态周期（%aMVC）和爆发期（%aMVC）的活动进行了量化，并分析了盆底肌爆发期的时间，以探究盆底肌在步态周期中何时最为活跃。我们还对盆底肌和臀大肌的爆发时间进行了相位度量分析。我们进行了Spearman等级相关分析，以检验速度对%aMVC、%aMVC和相位度量得分的影响，并使用Wilcoxon符号秩检验来评估速度匹配（行走与慢跑）的步态方式对这些变量的影响。
盆底肌在整个步态周期中均有活动，爆发通常发生在单腿支撑期间。根据条件不同，盆底肌和臀大肌在步态周期的44% - 69%处于同相位。步态速度与%aMVC和%aMVC均呈正相关（< 0.001）。慢跑时的相位度量得分显著高于过渡行走（= 0.005），但步态方式在%aMVC或%aMVC上无差异（= 0.059）。在可能的情况下，我们按性别对数据进行了分类，但由于样本量较小，无法进行统计比较。
盆底肌在行走和慢跑过程中均有活动，速度越快活动越强，且在单腿支撑周围有活动爆发。盆底肌和臀大肌在步态过程中共同激活，但并非完全同相位。
