Meeting Abstract
During landing the musculoskeletal system is responsible for dissipating mechanical energy, causing the body to undergo rapid decelerations. Previous work has shown that landings are associated with high loading regimes where ground reaction forces can exceed four times body weight. We aimed to understand the upper limits of energy dissipation during landing in Rhinella marina by artificially increasing body mass in order to lower the muscle mass to body mass ratio. We compared the kinetics and kinematics of the landing using force plate ergometry and high-speed video R. marina (n = 5) across three conditions: 100%, 110%, and 120% Body Weight. The overall landing performance was characterized by quantifying the forelimb kinematics, the rates and magnitudes of impact forces, and the energy dissipated by the forelimbs normalized to the total energy of the system. Our results illustrate a significant difference in landing kinematics after increasing the individual’s overall body mass. The result of these experiment shed insight on how decreased muscle mass relative to body mass affects locomotor performance and how locomotor behavior adapts to safely dissipate impact energy. This work may have broad implications for the limits of energy dissipating tasks in conditions such as muscle atrophy, gravidity, or obesity.
